Busybody
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Why are homicide laws different for women & men?
Consider the following:
•This May, a Florida man was indicted on federal first-degree murder charges, because he aborted his girlfriend’s fetus (giving her an abortion drug without her knowledge). News articles state that she was six weeks pregnant (well under such legal abortion limits as 20 or 24 weeks).
•Also in May, the 300+ charges on rapist-kidnapper Ariel Castro included one charge of aggravated murder, because his assaults on his female victims had terminated a pregnancy.
•In 2004, a CA man was charged with murder after his pregnant girlfriend’s fetus died, due to his assaults on her.
In each example, the men certainly deserve charges/punishment for other reasons; namely, for crimes of fraud, assault, kidnapping or rape.
But murder? In each case, the murder charge arose from the man having aborted his fetus (that is, the fetus created from his genes). Is that just? In each example, if the woman had aborted her fetus, she would not be charged with murder.
Why is it a crime of homicide when the father terminates the fetus, but not when the mother does? Why should the same action (killing the fetus) be a crime, or not, depending on who (which parent) did it?
If the variant were race – If we claimed, for example, that the killing of a black person is somehow not murder, when “who did it” happens to be a white person – then Bob Dylan would write protest songs about the inequality…and rightly so.
Consider the following:
•This May, a Florida man was indicted on federal first-degree murder charges, because he aborted his girlfriend’s fetus (giving her an abortion drug without her knowledge). News articles state that she was six weeks pregnant (well under such legal abortion limits as 20 or 24 weeks).
•Also in May, the 300+ charges on rapist-kidnapper Ariel Castro included one charge of aggravated murder, because his assaults on his female victims had terminated a pregnancy.
•In 2004, a CA man was charged with murder after his pregnant girlfriend’s fetus died, due to his assaults on her.
In each example, the men certainly deserve charges/punishment for other reasons; namely, for crimes of fraud, assault, kidnapping or rape.
But murder? In each case, the murder charge arose from the man having aborted his fetus (that is, the fetus created from his genes). Is that just? In each example, if the woman had aborted her fetus, she would not be charged with murder.
Why is it a crime of homicide when the father terminates the fetus, but not when the mother does? Why should the same action (killing the fetus) be a crime, or not, depending on who (which parent) did it?
If the variant were race – If we claimed, for example, that the killing of a black person is somehow not murder, when “who did it” happens to be a white person – then Bob Dylan would write protest songs about the inequality…and rightly so.
