it's not the band i hate...

anti-choice in arizona

I’ve often said that for fundies, life begins at conception and ends at birth. That is the only way to rationalize their zealous attempts to protect fetal life at all costs, while supporting policies that send kids off to die in illegal wars, or cut welfare and Medicaid for the poorest members of society (usually single mothers). So, while I wish I could summon up the proper degree of outrage, frankly, I’m not surprised that Arizona is re-writing its fetal homicide law to cover a “fetus at any stage of development.”

I’m so torn on the issue of fetal homicide laws. On the one hand, I think that anyone that knowingly attacks or kills a woman with the intention of killing her fetus should be charged with murder. Particularly when leading cause of death for pregnant women is murder. On the other hand, I’m wary of attempts to categorize the fetus as a person with the same rights as an extant woman. There has to be a way to balance both of those interests, and amazingly, the current law in Arizona (the one they want to scrap for this new legislation) does just that.

Currently, the statute permits an assailant to be charged with manslaughter for killing a fetus.

But those charges can only be brought if the injuries to the mother were severe enough to be life threatening to her. So a minor injury to the mother would not be enough to trigger charges of manslaughter, even if the fetus died.

The law also requires proof that the attacker "knowingly or recklessly" caused the death of the fetus.

emphasis mine

This law recognizes that the primary concern should always be the woman, and threats to her bodily integrity should always be taken into consideration prior to that of her fetus. But this new legislation takes things way too far. According to Arizona Sen. Bill Brotherton:

"The penalties involved here for injury to a fertilized egg and injury to the mother, who already obviously has been born and is living, are either the same or greater,'' he said.

"I don't know if that's a fair situation,'' Brotherton continued. "I don't know if I see these types of death being the same."

emphasis mine

The law permits penalties for the death of a fertilized egg, people! A fertilized egg! Now, I know the fundies are all about life beginning at conception, but we are talking about a point when the woman is not even pregnant! The National Institutes of Health defines pregnancy as the implantation of a fertilized egg into a woman’s uterus. The Arizona legislature is attempting to impart personhood onto a clump of cells that are barely a week old. In the United States, there is a 50% spontaneous abortion rate before the first missed menstrual period—those are pregnancies that are miscarried before the woman even realizes that she is pregnant. Under the proposed Arizona legislation, an assailant would be liable for the murder of a fetus that a woman probably didn’t even know she was carrying.

And the worst part about all of this? Arizona Senator Dean Martin (I’m so not making that up!) is appropriating pro-choice rhetoric to support a law that can only be used to usurp a woman’s right to chose:

And Sen. Dean Martin, R-Phoenix, said the bill is pro-choice. "If we're going to go on to the right to choose, then a woman should have the right to choose life as much as anything else," he said.

She did choose life, you schmuck, she didn’t terminate her pregnancy! But there is nothing in the current Arizona statute that claims that a woman who chooses to remain pregnant has no rights. Read the law again: a person that knowingly attacks a pregnant woman and causes the death of her fetus is guilty of manslaughter—that affirms a woman’s right to choose to continue a pregnancy, while still recognizing her rights to her own body.

For more on this, check out Feministing

posted by annamaria @ 10:04 AM