Oregon's Pregnancy/Crime Law

If you kill a pregnant woman, should you receive a different prison sentence than if you kill a non-pregnant woman?

Suppose, as the new Oregon law dictates, you should indeed get a harsher sentence for killing the pregnant woman.

What does this mean?

Does it mean that the embryo-foetus-"child" within is a separate person you can murder, thus increasing your prison sentence? If that's the case, should women be tried for murder when they have miscarriages or abortions?

Does it mean that pregnant women are more worthy of protection by the law than are non-pregnant women and men? If that's the case, do we approve of this discrimination against the non-pregnant?

How could a law that sounds so reasonable start unraveling so quickly once exposed to a few questions?

Comments

[Christina]

This is a law that might make pro-choicers uneasy -- if killing an embry/foetus in utero through negligent driving is a crime -- then what is abortion?

It's similar to the "hate crimes" law that has some question why put a different label on killing a gay man than a straight. Isn't all life equally valuable?

[magdalen]

i think it's a pretty sticky situation. i do think there is an extra dollop of nausea and anger when i hear of some psycho raping a woman, killing her, and either intentionally or accidentally doing something extra-disgusting the the foetus. but yeah... that certainly brings abortion into question.

i think abortion should be 100% legal. then again, once i got blasted by the biological clock, i realized at some point (maybe age 37?) that i could never have an abortion from that point on. i had always assumed that if i somehow got pregnant, i would terminate the pregnancy.

that moment was very strange. i do think it's the *mother's* choice. maybe this sentencing law could be viewed this way: a murderer takes away the mother's right to choose when she or he kills or destroys what is in her womb. ?? that could stay in the pro-choice camp. it's the mother's right to choose what to keep and nurture in her body. no one else should be allowed to terminate that pregnancy, nor to force her to keep the embryo through birth.

[aec]

The reason these laws make pro-choice people uneasy is, it is threatened for use against doctors whose reproductive services include ending pregnancies.

However, a person who assaults a pregnant woman that ends with a fetus killing has violated her privacy and bodily integrity at least as much as someone who would tell her she could or couldn't get the medical care she needs from her doctor. It's not unprecedented -- in early America, a person who killed a fetus in utero committed the crime of depriving the father money of an heir (but no crime against the monther). (Abortions were legal before about 1850, as long as the father consented.)