Sometimes I can’t believe what I’m reading.
A Senate subcommittee in South Carolina is seeking to expand the state’s “Stand Your Ground” defense law to include protections for all children, including unborn ones, beginning from the moment of conception.
In other words a Senate subcommittee in South Carolina is seeking to legalize the murder of abortion providers.
Democratic State Senator Brad Hutto shared with The State his concern that any new law would be redundant, as it is already legal for a pregnant woman to respond with deadly force. He asked supporters of the measures — three are currently pending — to provide him with an example in which an unborn child’s life would be threatened when the mother’s isn’t.
The subcommittee passed a bill it called “The Pregnant Women’s Protection Act,” but abortion-rights activists claim the name of the bill is a misnomer used to disguise the fact that this bill is actually a back-door effort to grant constitutional rights to embryos from the moment of conception.
And thus remove said rights from pregnant women.
Ophelia,
IANAL, but the bill, even if ostensibly, proposes to accord the “stand your ground right” to the pregnant woman, not to a third party. I don’t understand how it would “legalize the murder of abortion providers”, which would imply that the abortion-seeker has the right to kill the abortion provider. It’s another insidious attempt by the “Republic of Gilead” to confer personhood on the fetus [Section 16-11-441 (A) definition 2], as Senator Brad Hutto says.
IMO, the sooner this personhood stuff goes before the SCOTUS, the better. Who knows who will be the POTUS after 2016? At least, we have J.Kennedy and President Obama now.
What a bunch of truly awful human beings the forced-birth brigade are.
Shaker Srinivasan @ 1,
I imagine that it would allow a third party to “defend” the fetus of a woman seeking an abortion by shooting the doctor. I guess a zealot (Scott Roeder for example) can do this now, except they could be charged with murder currently, but with this law in place they could use a Stand Your Ground defence.
Isn’t this already covered in the existing laws concerning assault? Assault laws cover self defense, and I think that pregnant women would probably already be given a bit of leeway if they upped the ante to deadly force as they are encumbered from defeating their attacker by less violent means.
Existing laws and regular juries can handle this shit.
This all just a scam to prosecute abortion doctors or forgive clinic bombers.
Can pregnant women invoke it against fetuses?
If a woman’s health is in danger because of pregnancy can she then shoot the legislator? and if an abortion doctor can he or she shoot the person who is a threat?
Quixotic James @3: I quote from the 2013-14 Bill S.527 (http://www.scstatehouse.gov/sess120_2013-2014/bills/527.htm) –
(bold mine)
No third party right here.
um…fine? Let the fetus kill its mother, then. And no hard feelings?
Explenation 1:
Pregnancies are never ever a threat to a woman. Therefore an action that threatens to end the pregnancy does not endanger the woman, allowing her to use current SYG laws to defend herself. Seriously, pregnancies, totally harmless! That’s why women never died from coathanger abortions and why Savita Halapavanar is still alive and kicking
Explenation 2: Women are not actually people, but embryos and fetuses are (one of the irrevocable changes that occur at birth is that female fetuses lose their person-status). Therefore you need extra laws to protect the person in that scenario. Who cares about the incubator?
Explenation 3: A combination of the above
The only case I can think of where such a law makes any sense at all would be an attack intended to induce a miscarriage. But such an attack already exposes the woman to the risk of grave bodily harm or death, so existing self-defense laws already apply.
If the law does no more than claimed, which I never believe, then it’s essentially a symbolic attempt at classifying the fetus as a person. Just a bit more of the wedge.
However, the wording is critical. Self-defense law generally allows third parties to act in defense of another on the same terms that they themselves could act. If the wording doesn’t exclude this, then killing abortion providers does become potentially defensible in court.
Pregnant women already have that right. Make no mistake about this. This is an attempt to legalize the murder of abortion providers.
Hi, Ophelia. I hope you see this. I just got this link from my elderly, early dementia father:
http://americanthinker.com/2014/04/the_dark_side_of_the_sebelius_legacy.html
It’s about how Kathleen Sebelius, as governor of Kansas, chose to not enforce anti-abortion laws, resulting in women from neighboring states flooding into Kansas for abortions, and, in particular, to condone now-murdered Dr. George Tiller’s performance of late-term abortions.
If this article’s charges are true, I have only one thing to say:
Thank you, Kathleen Sebelius. I wish we had 100,000 more of you.
I see it, Blanche; thanks.