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N.H. fetal homicide bill unintentionally gives pregnant women impunity to murder

W

whyamihere

Banned
l o l

http://www.concordmonitor.com/fetal-homicide-bill-has-pregnant-woman-loophole-10658835

State lawmakers are scrambling to fix a fetal homicide bill that critics say has serious unintended consequences, including letting pregnant women kill people with impunity.

“The bill as drafted allows for physician-assisted suicide and allows a pregnant woman to commit homicide without consequences,” said Republican Rep. JR Hoell, who is urging Gov. Chris Sununu to veto the bill. “Although that was never the intent, that is the clear reading of the language.”

State House leaders are now planning to clarify the bill, put it back up for a vote and send a revision to Sununu.

“We’re going to fix it,” said Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley, a Wolfeboro Republican. “Everybody agrees the intent was never to allow this kind of circumstance.”

Under Senate Bill 66, fetuses at certain stages of development can be considered victims of murder or manslaughter. Supporters say the change will ensure justice for women who lose a pregnancy due to an assault or a car accident, but critics warn that the measure treats fetuses like people and could erode the rights of pregnant women.

At issue is an exemption that protects doctors and women seeking abortions from fetal homicide charges. As written, the bill suggests that “any act committed by the pregnant woman” or a “physician” wouldn’t apply in cases of second-degree murder, manslaughter, negligent homicide, or causing or aiding suicide.

Attorneys say the wording would be unlikely to let all pregnant women charged with homicide off the hook, due to several legal factors including a basic principle that statutes be construed to avoid an “absurd result.” But they agree the language is overly broad and not entirely clear.

“It seems like a completely legitimate concern that should be taken seriously by the governor and Legislature,” said Devon Chaffee, executive director of the ACLU of New Hampshire, which opposed the bill.

Concerns with the bill’s wording didn’t come up in public hearings and were only brought to lawmakers’ attention recently, they said. The legislation has already gotten approval from the Republican-led House and Senate.

Through what’s known as the “enrolled bills process,” Republican Senate leaders now plan to tighten the exemption and put the fix up for a vote June 22, Bradley said. It’s not yet clear how the revision will read.

“I don’t think anybody will have a problem with it, even at least, I hope, people who are opposed to Senate Bill 66,” he said. “Whether you are for SB 66 or against it, I don’t think anybody would support allowing manslaughter, murder, etc.”

Amendments at this late stage – once a bill has already cleared the Senate and House – usually consist of minor spelling or grammar corrections that don’t need another vote. Because changes to the fetal homicide bill deal with the legislative intent, Bradley said another vote is needed for transparency. The House plans to make the same fixes, but won’t seek sign-off from the full chamber, according to Republican Majority Leader Dick Hinch.

Republicans have long pushed for fetal homicide laws. This year’s bill, which Sununu has said he will sign, would apply in cases when a fetus dies after it reaches 20 weeks gestation.

The threshold represents a compromise among Republicans, who in the past haven’t been able to agree on what stage in fetal development the policy should take effect. Democrats argued the 20-week marker is arbitrary and not based in any science.

At least 38 states currently have fetal homicide laws, and 23 of those apply to the earliest stages of pregnancy, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Hoell blamed the wording mistake on lawmakers’ efforts to push the bill through prematurely, he said. An anti-abortion Republican, Hoell voted against the measure after hearing from defense attorneys about the unintended consequences. “It really needs to be fixed,” he said. “I would start with a veto and start from scratch.”
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P

Pandora012

Member
So people voted on this bill without reading it? Seems par for the course. Though the aids that actually read this, probably should have caught that.
 
Squirrel Killer

Squirrel Killer

Member
Pandora012 said:
So people voted on this bill without reading it? Seems par for the course. Though the aids that actually read this, probably should have caught that.
Click to expand...
Yes, legislators vote on bills without reading them. There is even a book by a former California state legislator titled, "What Makes You Think We Read the Bills?"
 
B

Bam Bam Baklava

Member
Pandora012 said:
So people voted on this bill without reading it? Seems par for the course. Though the aids that actually read this, probably should have caught that.
Click to expand...

Kind of similar to how 40 Republicans said they will be voting for the new HC bill the minute it was revealed to them.

Rubber stamping legislators should concern everyone.
 
H

H.Protagonist

[-_-]/
Seriously? You're barely scheduled for an important fetal anomaly scan at the bloody 20 week mark. Time to go and take out everyone who pushed for this 20 week nonsense while it's legal, I guess. -_-
 
HellforLeather

HellforLeather

Member
tenor.gif
 
Squirrel Killer

Squirrel Killer

Member
H.Protagonist said:
Seriously? You're barely scheduled for an important fetal anomaly scan at the bloody 20 week mark. Time to go and take out everyone who pushed for this 20 week nonsense while it's legal, I guess. -_-
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That's about 16 weeks after everyone involved become emotionally attached to the fetus.
 
G

Griss

Member
Any state that has fetal homicide laws on the books AND allows abortion is one messed up place, imo.

Is a fetus a person with the right to life or not? Decide, and move from there. If not, create a new law 'depriving a person of pregnancy' and apply the same penalties as your 'fetal homicide' law.

Seems like a way to edge towards anti-abortion laws to me.
 
H

H.Protagonist

[-_-]/
Squirrel Killer said:
That's about 16 weeks after everyone involved become emotionally attached to the fetus.
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Yes, people often use absurd statements for satire. It's a staple tool in the comedic arsenal, and suits the ridiculousness of the way they worded their bill quite well, in my opinion (seeing as I'm pregnant and can apparently elude justice for the next couple of months in NH.).

What do you mean by the "16 weeks after everyone involved becomes emotionally attached" bit?
 
J

jon bones

hot hot hanuman-on-man action
maybe we can get some sort of pregnant woman hit squad to take out the idiots who vote for these sorts of bills
 
Squirrel Killer

Squirrel Killer

Member
H.Protagonist said:
What do you mean by the "16 weeks after everyone involved becomes emotionally attached" bit?
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Most people involved with pregnancies become emotionally attached as soon as they know about it. In my experience, that's been about 3-4 weeks or so, maybe a bit more. Fortunately, my wife wasn't ever a victim of something that caused her to lose a pregnancy, but if she was, I would've wanted this law to apply regardless of whether she was 20 weeks along or 10.

jon bones said:
maybe we can get some sort of pregnant woman hit squad to take out the idiots who vote for these sorts of bills
Click to expand...
Why do you hate this sort of bill?
 
H

H.Protagonist

[-_-]/
Squirrel Killer said:
Most people involved with pregnancies become emotionally attached as soon as they know about it. In my experience, that's been about 3-4 weeks or so, maybe a bit more. Fortunately, my wife wasn't ever a victim of something that caused her to lose a pregnancy, but if she was, I would've wanted this law to apply regardless of whether she was 20 weeks along or 10.


Why do you hate this sort of bill?
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As someone who is pregnant and has had a baby, no, that's not the case for the majority. Or, at least, not positively so. Even those who are happy about it hold their breath until the 12 week mark when the risk of miscarriage drops off. And if you've had a miscarriage, you try not to become attached at all until you know it's sticking around, and even then, well. Heck, most women don't even know they're pregnant until week 6-7 because you need to miss your period first. I wonder if you're counting 3 or 4 week from confirming you're pregnant?

At any rate, there are plenty of unplanned pregnancies that were unintended or unwanted, so emotionally-speaking, their attachment is in the negative. And as for the random and arbitrary "20 week" mark, that's right in the middle of an important scan to check for abnormalities, as I mentioned. At the least, the limit should be put at 24 weeks to give women a chance to process the results and take action if they so choose to.
 
Squirrel Killer

Squirrel Killer

Member
H.Protagonist said:
As someone who is pregnant and has had a baby, no, that's not the case for the majority. Or, at least, not positively so. Even those who are happy about it hold their breath until the 12 week mark when the risk of miscarriage drops off. And if you've had a miscarriage, you try not to become attached at all until you know it's sticking around, and even then, well. Heck, most women don't even know they're pregnant until week 6-7 because you need to miss your period first. I wonder if you're counting 3 or 4 week from confirming you're pregnant?
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As the male partner in multiple pregnancies that were lost well before 20 weeks, and having talked with friends of my wife who have also lost pregnancies early, I find the argument that the majority women are not emotionally attached to their unborn fetus to be quite surprising. Of course we're not as attached to the pregnancies that we lost as we are to the one we didn't, and of course held our breath - especially after the first loss - until 12 weeks, hell, even to delivery.

Since we did IVF for all of our successful pregnancies, we knew pretty damned early. But just as you use absurd statements for your comedic arsenal, my "16 weeks after everyone involved becomes emotionally attached" "bit" was an attempt to show that a pregnant victim who loses her fetus cares about it regardless if it before or after some arbitrary 20 week mark.

H.Protagonist said:
At any rate, there are plenty of unplanned pregnancies that were unintended or unwanted, so emotionally-speaking, their attachment is in the negative. And as for the random and arbitrary "20 week" mark, that's right in the middle of an important scan to check for abnormalities, as I mentioned. At the least, the limit should be put at 24 weeks to give women a chance to process the results and take action if they so choose to.
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What are you even talking about? "Time to process the results of a scan for abnormalities" is an argument for extending the period of time a woman can choose to have an abortion. This bill has nothing to do with abortion, except for section intended to make it clear this bill had nothing to do with abortion that was written too broadly and accidentally allow pregnant woman to murder.
 
H

H.Protagonist

[-_-]/
Squirrel Killer said:
As the male partner in multiple pregnancies that were lost well before 20 weeks, and having talked with friends of my wife who have also lost pregnancies early, I find the argument that the majority women are not emotionally attached to their unborn fetus to be quite surprising. Of course we're not as attached to the pregnancies that we lost as we are to the one we didn't, and of course held our breath - especially after the first loss - until 12 weeks, hell, even to delivery.

Since we did IVF for all of our successful pregnancies, we knew pretty damned early. But just as you use absurd statements for your comedic arsenal, my "16 weeks after everyone involved becomes emotionally attached" "bit" was an attempt to show that a pregnant victim who loses her fetus cares about it regardless if it before or after some arbitrary 20 week mark.


What are you even talking about? "Time to process the results of a scan for abnormalities" is an argument for extending the period of time a woman can choose to have an abortion. This bill has nothing to do with abortion, except for section intended to make it clear this bill had nothing to do with abortion that was written too broadly and accidentally allow pregnant woman to murder.
Click to expand...

I suppose it's all just a matter of experience. Since I'm part of a lot of groups for pregnant women during all this, it's definitely pretty mixed. It could be that the older crowd are less inclined to be attached exactly because of the uncertainty (I can empathize with you and your wife on that), but I read your initial statement as "all people are thrilled about it instantly, so no date matters." In general, I think I'm mixing up articles, though. NH has had pushes to ban abortion at the 20 week mark before that came up in another thread ages ago, and that their continued zealousness on the personhood thing has them pushing this bill which was, obviously, not exactly well checked out on the whole murder line. Disregard my second bit, then, as that's not quite part of the discussion here.

And, all that aside, belated congrats on the successful IVF. I know how tough that can be from my SIL's experience. Hope you'll pop in on the parent thread.
 
Squirrel Killer

Squirrel Killer

Member
H.Protagonist said:
I suppose it's all just a matter of experience. Since I'm part of a lot of groups for pregnant women during all this, it's definitely pretty mixed. It could be that the older crowd are less inclined to be attached exactly because of the uncertainty (I can empathize with you and your wife on that), but I read your initial statement as "all people are thrilled about it instantly, so no date matters." In general, I think I'm mixing up articles, though. NH has had pushes to ban abortion at the 20 week mark before that came up in another thread ages ago, and that their continued zealousness on the personhood thing has them pushing this bill which was, obviously, not exactly well checked out on the whole murder line.
Click to expand...
My "16 weeks" comment was not intended to say that every single person involved in every single pregnancy was deeply emotionally attached, of course there are unplanned/unwanted/other pregnancies that the people involved with are not thrilled about. It was a reaction to how I read your comments that the arbitrary 20 week was far too early. A lot of people, although perhaps less that I thought, are emotionally attached to their early stage fetuses to want this kind of law applied earlier than 20 weeks.

On a semi-related note, I do get a little frustrated with these laws because inevitably some GOPer tries to leverage them to restrict abortion (or some frat dipwad tries to use them to get out of an underage drinking law.) One of my first jobs in politics was with a pro-life Republican who had a constituent which prompted us to work on a similar bill, but I'm proud to say that he made sure to draw a bright line between this and abortion.
 
F0rneus

F0rneus

Tears in the rain
There's like a really funny horror movie anthology segment in that story. That or a great rape and revenge flick.
 
Squirrel Killer

Squirrel Killer

Member
Straight Edge said:
The bill will ensure justice for women who lose a pregnancy due to a car accident. What kind of justice would this entail?
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This particular version includes 20 week and older fetus in the laws regarding first and second degree murder, manslaughter, negligent homicide, and causing or aiding suicide. So whatever justice for those would apply. On the law I worked on, it was a separate law and classified as a low level felony (in some cases it even fell down to a misdemeanor.)

Straight Edge said:
What if you non maliciously get into an accident and the woman miscarries. Are you going to be tried for vehicular manslaughter?
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By non maliciously, do you mean unintentionally? That would probably fall under negligent homicide, which is a class B felony in New Hampshire.
 
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