... if they kill an unborn child (like they shoot a pregnant woman in the belly during a robbery and the fetus dies). If it's really murder shouldn't abortion also be illegal? And if abortion is legal, how can it be murder? It seems to me like it should be either both or neither. What do you think?
2007-08-23 13:51:01 · 12 answers · asked by David M 6 in Politics & Government ➔ Law & Ethics
My point though is if the baby is just "property" how can it me murdered? You can't murder property.
2007-08-23 14:16:07 · update #1
It's a fine line between murdering a fetus and having an abortion. My final brief for American Constitutional Law was on this very thing. A woman has the right to choose whether or not she will carry a pregnancy to term. That is considered her "right to an abortion". BUT, if a VIABLE fetus is killed in the commission of another crime, it is considered murder under many state legal codes. It's because the baby could have lived outside the womb.
You're most likely thinking of a recent case where a police officer (Cutts) has been indicted for murdering his girlfriend and the baby she was carrying. She was so far along in her pregnancy that the baby could have lived. So, he killed a "living being" who has the capacity to live outside the womb.
Fine line, I know. But to make it easier to remember, when any human who can live and breathe outside the womb is killed in the commission of a crime, it is considered murder. Any "fetus" (notice the change in terminology here) that is destroyed in an abortion is not considered a "viable" human because abortions are supposed to only be legal up until the end of the 2nd trimester. There was a huge hue and cry when Late-Term Abortions were added as a rider to an important bill. Late-Term Abortions are abortions performed on viable fetuses. What gets me is, these women could just go and have a baby killed up to the time of labor and not be charged with murder, but -- if someone else killed the fetus, while committing another crime --even if she didn't want to have the baby and was going to give it up for adoption once it was born -- it's murder.
Late-term abortions (Partial Birth Abortions) should not be legal. It will take an act of Congress, literally, to get it removed from federal Abortion statutes.
Like everything in law, it's all semantics.
2007-08-23 14:12:31 · answer #1 · answered by Serena 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
I'd just like to clarify - a person can be charged with murder for causing the death of an unborn fetus at any time during gestation, whether it be "viable" or not.
Additionally, the reason that abortion is not considered murder is complicated. For one, the law is in no place to determine "when" life begins. Yes, I understand that for some religious personslife begins at conception, but the legal standard must be based on science, of course, and not religion. Unfortunately, science is not equipped as a discipline to pinpoint the beginning of life. What determines the beginning of life, but what standard would we judge? Would it be conception, viability? Taken to its absurd, would destroying any egg or sperm be considered murder? Neither science nor the law is capable of answering these questions and because the law cannot legislate religiosity, abortion must be left to individual choice. You may not agree, however, no one is in any position to thrust their own personal conception of morality on another.
2007-08-23 14:24:34 · answer #2 · answered by leslie 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It should be clear to you why one is murder and the other is not. In one case, the intent of the murderer is to kill. And in the case of the abortion, the intent of the abortion is to better the lives of the woman, her other children, her spouse, and society in general. And the Bible makes it clear that abortion is not killing. God himself practices abortion and taught man the methods of abortion. By natural law she has the right to protect herself and control her own body. And by natural law and man's law you do not have the right to stop her. So your position is on a par with the murderer.
Neither you or the murderer have a right to infringe on the liberty of the woman.
2007-08-26 17:35:12 · answer #3 · answered by Give me Liberty 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You can only be charged with murder if the fetus was viable at the time. Abortion is only legal up to a certain point in the pregnancy. If you shot a pregnant women before that point you wouldn't be charged with murder.
2007-08-23 13:57:52 · answer #4 · answered by Carolyn D 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋
homicide is a legal term, and it extremely is defined strictly by employing state statute. a guy or woman must be charged with homicide for the demise of unborn fetus if the state regulation so can provide. whether, abortion is specifically excluded from the legal definition of homicide because of the fact the perfect court docket decision in Roe v. Wade held that any regulation criminalizing abortions beforehand of viability of the fetus is unconstitutional. the element is: if a state regulation says that somebody who kills a field turtle could be charged with homicide, then that is seen homicide. If capturing your neighbor's dogs does not symbolize homicide in accordance to the language of the statute, then that is not homicide. yet different than for the legal element of the situation, there is an significant difference between a woman inflicting the termination of her very own being pregnant by an abortion and the demise of an unborn fetus brought about by employing the intentional misconduct of a 0.33 occasion. think of approximately it this way: somebody who cuts off a woman's arm could be charged with attack and battery besides as countless different crimes, whether it extremely is extremely legal for a woman to shrink off her arm herself. the excellence is the lady's decision as to no be counted if she needs to lose her arm or not. Her being pregnant follows the comparable concept: if she needed to hold the fetus to term, then the early termination brought about by employing the strikes of yet another could be punishable by employing regulation, yet whilst she does not want to maintain the being pregnant, then she would be in a position to terminate it herself beforehand of a undeniable element in time. probable the main mandatory element to appreciate is that, legally speaking, a fetus isn't a citizen of the U.S., because of the fact it has not been born, and consequently it has no inherent "appropriate to life" certain by employing the form.
2016-10-03 03:51:25 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you really think about it a baby is a parasite to the mother (I'm not degrading the child, just speaking scientifically). It lives off her and cannot survive without her, so therefore the baby is her property. It is her choice whether she wants the baby to live off her or not. When a woman gets an abortion SHE decides to terminate the baby. When a baby gets harmed in a violent act, someone else decides to terminate the baby.
2007-08-23 14:02:48 · answer #6 · answered by Stephanie S 4 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Because it's not intentional on the part of the host. Kind of like the difference between giving something to someone and having them steal it from you.
Abortion will always exist and the methods they use now are safer than a rusty hanger, so get the sand out of your vagina, please.
2007-08-23 16:42:28 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Leslie,
If you (or "science") are uncertain as to when a human life begins, doesn't that mean that the only ethical thing to do is to give the benefit of the doubt to the position that it is a human with equal human rights? I flesh out this argument, along with the scientific evidence, in a blog post below.
2007-08-23 17:31:16 · answer #8 · answered by Chris 1 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I can see your point but this is America and women have the right to choose. Murderers don't.
2007-08-23 13:59:36 · answer #9 · answered by Lisa S 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Contradictory, huh?
Abortion is considered pro choice.
Murder takes away the woman's choice.
Go figure.
2007-08-23 14:00:10 · answer #10 · answered by ed 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋