How often have we argued here and on Jill’s whether it’s murder or homicide to take an unborn child’s life. How many times have we discussed when a “fetus” becomes a “baby”.
I believe it’s a human child from the moment of fertilization. Others say when it’s heart begins to beat. Still others have argued that it begins when the child becomes sentient. Others say it’s a “baby” when it’s viable.
But the one thing we have ALL agreed on, is that it is most definitely a “baby” once it is born.
The state of Virginia says otherwise. From Newsadvance.com
A loophole in state law is preventing Campbell County investigators from charging a woman they say killed her newborn baby.
Deputies were called to a home in the 1200 block of Lone Jack Road in Rustburg about 11 a.m. Friday. The caller said a woman in her early 20s was in labor.
When deputies arrived, they discovered the baby had actually been born around 1 a.m., about 10 hours earlier. Investigators said the baby was already dead when deputies got there.
Investigators told WSLS the baby’s airway was blocked. They said the baby was under bedding and had been suffocated by her mother. Investigators said because the mother and baby were still connected by the umbilical cord and placenta, state law does not consider the baby to be a separate life. Therefore, the mother cannot be charged.
“In the state of Virginia as long as the umbilical cord is attached and the placenta is still in the mother, if the baby comes out alive the mother can do whatever she wants to with that baby to kill it,“ said Investigator Tracy Emerson. “She could shoot the baby, stab the baby. As long as it’s still attached to her in some form by umbilical cord or something it’s no crime in the state of Virginia.“
If we had been having this discussion and one of us brought this type of thing up as a slippery slope argument, we’d have been pooh-poohed for being hyper-dramatic, calling up worst case scenarios…using situations that could never happen in real life. Except they can. And they did. More than once…
The Campbell County Sheriff’s Office and Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office worked unsuccessfully to get the law changed after another baby died in the county in a similar case. Emerson said they asked two delegates and one state senator to take the issue up in the General Assembly. He says the three lawmakers refused because they felt the issue was too close to the abortion issue.
And they wonder why Abortion is at the forefront of the Health Care Debate. Because all of us hysterics do not want to pay for the right of women to slaughter their children. Unborn, or in the state of Virginia, born.
Ironically, if the baby had been suffocated by anyone other than the mother, that person would have been charged with murder.
Emerson said there is a double standard with the law. If someone other than the mother harms a baby still attached to the mother, that person can be charged.
I am honestly at a loss for words. I only wish that this story was on the front page of EVERY major Newspaper in the country.
God Bless you little one. You are not forgotten.
If we had been having this discussion and one of us brought this type of thing up as a slippery slope argument, we’d have been pooh-poohed for being hyper-dramatic, calling up worst case scenarios…using situations that could never happen in real life. Except they can. And they did.
It just had to be said again.
Here’s the most ironic part – the legislature won’t review the law because it is too close to the abortion issue. Exactly how is obvious murder too close to the abortion issue? Things to make you hmmm?
They just admitted that abortion is murder….