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Fetus Protection Bill Nears Passage
By JIM ABRAMS
WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress stood ready Thursday to send President Bush legislation making it a separate offense to harm a fetus during a violent federal crime, an issue that has become tangled with the battle over abortion.
The Senate cleared the way for passing the Unborn Victims of Violence Act by defeating an amendment, backed by abortion rights lawmakers, that would have increased penalties but maintained that an attack on a pregnant victim was a single-victim crime.
The House approved the legislation last month.
The vote is being closely watched by anti-abortion and other conservative groups, who have made passage of the measure one of their top goals this year. Abortion rights groups say the bill is an effort to undermine a woman's right to end her pregnancy.
The bill states that an assailant who attacks a pregnant woman while committing a violent federal crime can be prosecuted for separate offenses against both the woman and her unborn child, ``a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.''
``This bill recognizes that there are two victims,'' said Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, a chief sponsor. ``It's as simple as that.''
President Bush strongly supports the bill.
The key obstacle was an amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that would have imposed the same tougher penalties outlined in the DeWine bill but classified attacks on a pregnant woman as a single-victim crime, avoiding the issue of fetal rights and the question of when a person becomes a person.
Feinstein said that by defining when life begins, the bill was ``the first step in removing a woman's right to choice, particularly in the early months of a pregnancy before viability.'' She said it could also chill embryonic stem cell research.
Rep. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said the Feinstein amendment was ``all about denying the humanity of the child'' and that abortion rights proponents were trying to defeat the bill ``to protect this right that is not even at stake here today.''
The amendment was rejected, 50-49.
The Senate was also debating an amendment by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., that would require employers to give unpaid leave, and states to pay unemployment benefits, to women when they or family members are victims of domestic or sexual violence.
With defeat of the Murray language and passage of the bill, the legislation would go directly to the president for his signature.
Twenty-nine states have unborn victims laws.
The Senate bill covers 68 federal crimes of violence, including drug-related shootings, violence at an international airport, terrorist attacks, crimes on a military base and threats against a witness in a federal proceeding.
It would specifically exclude prosecution of legally performed abortions - a fact supporters cite in arguing that the bill would not undermine the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision affirming a woman's right to end a pregnancy.
``The criminals who commit these crimes are not committing abortions,'' said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee. ``They are depriving these unborn children of the right to life. It's a separate issue related to the right to life.''
Groups on both sides of the abortion issue lobbied hard on the legislation. The Christian Coalition of America said votes for either the Murray or Feinstein amendments would be regarded as negative votes on its annual congressional scorecard of lawmakers.
On the other side, NARAL Pro-Choice America delivered petitions to senators urging defeat of the bill because the group said it would allow judges to rule that humans at any stage of development deserve protection, even when that protection trumps a woman's interest in ending a pregnancy.
``This would be the first time in federal law that an embryo or fetus is recognized as a separate and distinct person under the law, separate from the woman,'' said NARAL president Kate Michelman. ``Much of this is preparing for the day the Supreme Court has a majority that will overrule Roe v. Wade.''
The bill is H.R. 1997.
On the Net:
Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov
National Right to Life Committee: http://www.nrlc.org
NARAL: http://www.naral.org
03/25/04 16:43
© Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained In this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
By JIM ABRAMS
WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress stood ready Thursday to send President Bush legislation making it a separate offense to harm a fetus during a violent federal crime, an issue that has become tangled with the battle over abortion.
The Senate cleared the way for passing the Unborn Victims of Violence Act by defeating an amendment, backed by abortion rights lawmakers, that would have increased penalties but maintained that an attack on a pregnant victim was a single-victim crime.
The House approved the legislation last month.
The vote is being closely watched by anti-abortion and other conservative groups, who have made passage of the measure one of their top goals this year. Abortion rights groups say the bill is an effort to undermine a woman's right to end her pregnancy.
The bill states that an assailant who attacks a pregnant woman while committing a violent federal crime can be prosecuted for separate offenses against both the woman and her unborn child, ``a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.''
``This bill recognizes that there are two victims,'' said Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, a chief sponsor. ``It's as simple as that.''
President Bush strongly supports the bill.
The key obstacle was an amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that would have imposed the same tougher penalties outlined in the DeWine bill but classified attacks on a pregnant woman as a single-victim crime, avoiding the issue of fetal rights and the question of when a person becomes a person.
Feinstein said that by defining when life begins, the bill was ``the first step in removing a woman's right to choice, particularly in the early months of a pregnancy before viability.'' She said it could also chill embryonic stem cell research.
Rep. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said the Feinstein amendment was ``all about denying the humanity of the child'' and that abortion rights proponents were trying to defeat the bill ``to protect this right that is not even at stake here today.''
The amendment was rejected, 50-49.
The Senate was also debating an amendment by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., that would require employers to give unpaid leave, and states to pay unemployment benefits, to women when they or family members are victims of domestic or sexual violence.
With defeat of the Murray language and passage of the bill, the legislation would go directly to the president for his signature.
Twenty-nine states have unborn victims laws.
The Senate bill covers 68 federal crimes of violence, including drug-related shootings, violence at an international airport, terrorist attacks, crimes on a military base and threats against a witness in a federal proceeding.
It would specifically exclude prosecution of legally performed abortions - a fact supporters cite in arguing that the bill would not undermine the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision affirming a woman's right to end a pregnancy.
``The criminals who commit these crimes are not committing abortions,'' said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee. ``They are depriving these unborn children of the right to life. It's a separate issue related to the right to life.''
Groups on both sides of the abortion issue lobbied hard on the legislation. The Christian Coalition of America said votes for either the Murray or Feinstein amendments would be regarded as negative votes on its annual congressional scorecard of lawmakers.
On the other side, NARAL Pro-Choice America delivered petitions to senators urging defeat of the bill because the group said it would allow judges to rule that humans at any stage of development deserve protection, even when that protection trumps a woman's interest in ending a pregnancy.
``This would be the first time in federal law that an embryo or fetus is recognized as a separate and distinct person under the law, separate from the woman,'' said NARAL president Kate Michelman. ``Much of this is preparing for the day the Supreme Court has a majority that will overrule Roe v. Wade.''
The bill is H.R. 1997.
On the Net:
Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov
National Right to Life Committee: http://www.nrlc.org
NARAL: http://www.naral.org
03/25/04 16:43
© Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained In this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.