Something I have never quite understood. Why does a man who kills a pregnant women get charged with double homicide? If life doesn't start at conception, did that man really kill two people? If you charge that man with double murder, then you are saying that life does start at conception, in which case Abortion would be murder. However, if you don't believe that life starts at conception, can you really charge the man with two murders?
2007-08-13 08:40:23 · 13 answers · asked by Anthony M 4 in Politics & Government ➔ Law & Ethics
State legislatures control the murder statutes in each state, and in most, but not all, the murder statute has been amended to include fetuses. That's why it's double murder.
2007-08-13 09:10:04 · answer #1 · answered by Molly 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
How 'come a person can wreck their car at a demolition derby and it's OK, but if a person steals your car and wrecks it on the highway, it's a felony?
(get it; it's all about empowering people and choices to do what they want with their own bodies, or having some criminal choose for them).
Fetuside was created, really, as a political tool by the anti-abortionists to get into people's minds that fetuses were people. Abortion rights people, who are usually woman or "family friendly," didn't object to the bill because they don't want to seem "anti-pregnancy," just "pro-choice." So there is no political opposition to such a bill, even though it may be logically inconsistent.
"Murder" is perhaps an improper term, and one that could be constitutionally suspect, but "fetuside" or some similar name, which would be more about depriving the woman of her right to take a pregnancy to term (rather than killing a human) would be a more apt description.
2007-08-13 09:32:50 · answer #2 · answered by Perdendosi 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
The law in most places is that someone can get charged with a double homicide for mother and fetus if the fetus could potentially be viable outside the womb. Killing a woman with a 2 month fetus could not be double homicide - there is no way it could live outside the womb. Seven, eight, nine months is a different story. Has nothing to do with conception, just sustainability of a fetus outside the womb.
2007-08-13 08:46:38 · answer #3 · answered by TeddyBear121 3 · 2⤊ 1⤋
This "question" comes up at least once a week around here.
The answer is that abortion is a woman's decision, and governs her body and whether or not she decides to have a child.
The man who kills the pregnant woman not only kills the woman, but kills what would have been a child if she had not been murdered.
Under the law, if a murder is carried out while another crime is being committed (say, if he kidnapped and also raped her, or killed her in the execution of another felony like a robbery), there would be an additional charge or a felony capitol murder charge. This is just another way to further punish a heinous crime.
2007-08-13 09:00:30 · answer #4 · answered by Hillary 6 · 1⤊ 3⤋
First of all not all states have the fetuscide laws on the books so an offender does not get charged with 2 murders unless they state can show that the fetus would have been viable outside the womb.
Most of the double murder statutes that have been passed are recent. They are passed because legislatures are politicians and special interest groups control what they do.
2007-08-13 08:46:02 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋
I believe that the fetus has to be a certain age before it counts as a double murder and also whether the mother intended on keeping the child. If the mother was on the way to get an abortion than the child would never come to full term to be considered a murder suspect. I think...
2007-08-13 08:46:10 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋
Because Roe. v. Wade and other abortion court decisions don't forbid it. There's no right to privacy getting in the way of a state passing a law that says killling a fetus by killing the mother is murder. Those states probably would pass laws against abortion too if they could, but they can't.
Being pro-choice, I believe that in the early stages of a pregnancy, it's not double murder - but it's certainly a terrible crime, since you're taking away something the mother values. It's like aggravated murder or something. In the later stages of pregnancy, you could call it murder.
2007-08-13 08:53:06 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋
In every state it is illegal to get an abortion in the third trimester.
In the states that allow prosecution of murder for killing an unborn child, the law is either the child is in the third trimester or would likely have lived if delivered at the time of the death.
In these cases they are NOT saying life begins at conception.
2007-08-13 08:46:47 · answer #8 · answered by davidmi711 7 · 2⤊ 1⤋
I read recently that it is based on whether or not the baby could have survived outside the womb. If it could have survived (even using medical intervention) it is deemed that the cause of death was murder - - thus the double murder 'penalty'.
2007-08-13 08:50:35 · answer #9 · answered by Barb B 4 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Good point. It appears there is a double standard in effect here.
2007-08-13 08:55:04 · answer #10 · answered by f1mudvayne29 5 · 1⤊ 3⤋