The reason feticide can become murder is because of the leqal fiction which says a fetus is a person for the purposes of the feticide law (much as a corporation is a person for tax purposes). This is a part of the anti-choice incremental erosion of particularly womens rights by making them subservient to a part of their own bodies. A cursory research of the background of such legislation in the USA - where abortion and women's rights are used as a political football - will clearly demonstrate that the legislation is motivated by a backdoor and underhanded attempt to abridge the constitution and establish precedent for fetal personhood.
This insanity is exclusive to the USA. In other countries throughout the world a crime involving feticide is considered an assault on the pregnant woman and the fact
she is pregnant is taken into consideration during the sentencing phase of the legal proceedings. Knowingly assaulting a pregnant woman will always result in a harsher penalty. This would be similar to punishing more harshly for cutting off a surgeon's or a concert pianist's fingers than a truck driver's.
It should be noted that the only other country in the world that finds a fetus protection law necessary is India - but for quite a different reason. Since reducing the number of female births is not in the overall interest of the state the Indian law tries to protect against abortion based solely on the gender of the fetus.
The overlap of this legal fiction and legal abortion is apparent. Even in the latter part of the pregnancy if a woman carries a fetus to the nebulous "viability" point and suddenly decides she no longer wants to continue it, and this is a decision not made on a medical imperative, then there is probably good reason to question her reasons (and possibly reasoning ability) and, if appropriate intervene to aid, or appeal to her to reconsider. However the final outcome is, and must always be, her own. Obviously with or without medical intervention there is a good chance of a live delivery may occur and we, as a society, do have sufficient interest from viability on to legislate against infanticide, - if the fetus is 'born' - or unwarranted feticide. There is no rationale however, that makes the fetus, even at this point,
not a part of the pregnancy unit (the woman) and therefore not subject to the rights and privileges of the adult, thinking, part of that unit.
- Eileen`s always in process page -
Eileen