telegramsam
2011-02-15 08:51 pm UTC (link)

I'm... not actually sure this bill is meant to allow people to go around killing abortion doctors when I read it...

It seems to say that if a pregnant woman is attacked and kills her attacker defending her unborn child, it is considered justifiable defense? Or am I reading this wrong? Would seem more to be addressing situations such as boyfriends/husbands/etc trying to cause a miscarriage by attacking a pregnant woman.

Of course that just makes it kind of stupidly redundant since there are self-defense laws already in place.

I'm really not quite understanding this mess... *scratches head*

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	mmanurere 2011-02-15 08:56 pm UTC (link)
	That's how it's written, at least -- but it's also another attempt to legally redefine a fetus as a person. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	telegramsam 2011-02-15 08:58 pm UTC (link)
	Oh that crap again. Can't they come up with something more original? (Reply to this)(Parent)

	telegramsam 2011-02-15 09:04 pm UTC (link)
	(Really, I'm just waiting for the day where they start locking up women for menstruating - "How dare you waste that egg! That was an unborn child just waiting to be born!" - ugh. And maybe start teaching the "Every Sperm is Sacred" song to boys before they reach puberty) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	missmercurial 2011-02-16 01:36 am UTC (link)
	All I can think of is the scene in Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes where the protagonist points out to the uber-religious antagonist that "Every boy in this room has committed murder millions of times, if you take that line of reasoning to its obvious conclusion." (Reply to this)(Parent)

	mmanurere 2011-02-16 04:09 am UTC (link)
	(I mean, it's not like they're even consistent about it -- they've declared that their own model of personhood is more important than the scripture they claim to get it from but which actually defines any pre-third-trimester fetus as basically not worth counting and any child shortly after birth still not entirely a person.) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	telegramsam 2011-02-16 02:55 pm UTC (link)
	(which just proves that it has fuck all to do with faith anyway and is really just shitty politics and insanity) (Reply to this)(Parent)

	ajatshatru 2011-02-20 02:39 am UTC (link)
	SNORFLE It could be 'Sperms uber alles' :D :D (Reply to this)(Parent)

	beccastareyes 2011-02-15 09:20 pm UTC (link)
	I guess the question is -- since any attempt to harm a fetus without the woman's consent would involve harming the woman, why can't you just cover that by 'if you assault a woman, even if it's 'just' to induce a miscarriage, she is allowed to defend herself and others are allowed to defend her'? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

telegramsam
2011-02-15 09:24 pm UTC (link)

Current self-defense laws already cover situations like that, though. That's why this is all rather fucking weird.

I don't doubt the people putting this bill forward have ulterior motives than just allowing people to defend themselves (like mmanurere said - redefine "fetus" as "person") so it's definitely unfunny, but I'm still not getting "it's open season on abortion doctors, boys! git yer guns!"

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	chaos_theory 2011-02-15 09:59 pm UTC (link)
	Actually the rhetoric is pretty firmly in place in the radical anti-abortion movement to back up an interpretation of killing abortion providers as justified homicide. It's, like, a meme of hate that's been going around. That guy that killed Dr. Tiller basically used it as his defense at his trial. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

cleolinda
2011-02-16 12:26 am UTC (link)

This may be a case of "dog whistle" rhetoric, where the people it's meant for understand it even if everyone else doesn't. So "because a fetus is a person, the mother should defend it" may have the dog-whistle implication of, "well, if a fetus is a person, we should kill anyone who tries to harm it" to the radical groups. You've put just enough into the law that people could try to extrapolate from it, I guess?

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	frenzy 2011-02-15 10:27 pm UTC (link)
	If this were in good faith, they would also be adding a provision to both sections that read something like, "The affirmative defense does not apply to the murder of persons performing a legal abortion." (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	silmaril 2011-02-16 05:38 pm UTC (link)
	Ding! Right answer. (Reply to this)(Parent)

sisterelwood
2011-02-15 10:36 pm UTC (link)

I've read some of the bill through Huffington Post and the original wording was so vague that it could be interpreted to mean anyone who causes harm to a fetus could be killed by the mother or anyone else who was trying to defend that fetus. As others have said- there are already laws for violence of this nature against the mother. Why do we need laws like this for the fetus? I've got an idea of the answer and I don't like it.

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	sisterelwood 2011-02-15 10:38 pm UTC (link)
	The aforementioned post- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/15/lawmaker-behind-south-dakota-justifiable-homicide-bill_n_823553.html (Reply to this)(Parent)

sandglass
2011-02-16 12:12 am UTC (link)

MotherJones has the explanation!

The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Phil Jensen, a committed foe of abortion rights, alters the state's legal definition of justifiable homicide by adding language stating that a homicide is permissible if committed by a person "while resisting an attempt to harm" that person's unborn child or the unborn child of that person's spouse, partner, parent, or child. If the bill passes, it could in theory allow a woman's father, mother, son, daughter, or husband to kill anyone who tried to provide that woman an abortion—even if she wanted one.

And I guess the idea is that attacks that could harm a fetus or cause a miscarriage are not necessarily dangerous enough to the mother to warrant using fatal force as self defense. Which I guess would mean that under this law, it'd be okay to kill someone to stop them from hitting a pregnant woman in the stomach (if you are that pregnant woman, or related to her).

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	brennalarose 2011-02-16 03:52 pm UTC (link)
	See, I don't mind that. Because if some jackass I spook at a haunted house tries to swipe at my clearly-pregnant midsection, I'm going to defend myself. Okay, maybe not lethally, but I think the cops will see me planting my size 11 Doc Marten in his kidneys as a fair trade use of defense. ...If I can get my foot that high. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	kookaburra 2011-02-16 04:32 pm UTC (link)
	But if that's the case, then why is it only justifiable if they are related to her? I'd like to think I would leap to the defense of anyone who happened to be pregnant if someone was trying to harm them. It just smacks of "your body belongs to a man, no matter what, if you're a woman." (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	sandglass 2011-02-16 06:09 pm UTC (link)
	Because you can only use lethal force to defend someone related to you? I'm not sure. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	full_metal_ox 2011-02-17 09:49 pm UTC (link)
	A couple illuminating points about the bill's definition of relationship: cohabitative partners without benefit of the ring evidently don't count as relatives, but masters, mistresses (in the sense of "domestic employers", wise guys!), and servants do. (Reply to this)(Parent)

missmercurial
2011-02-16 01:46 am UTC (link)

Why am I not at all surprised by this-I hate that they take laws that should be good (protect women from attack!) and try and twist them into some sick anti-choice thing. It's like the lady in Illinois who fell down a set of steps and almost lost her baby, then confessed to the nurse that she wasn't sure she still wanted the baby because her husband was leaving her. The nurse called the police and had her arrested under a law that was ostensibly intended to prosecute someone who mugged, beat up, etc. a pregnant woman. This lady spent three days in jail away from the three young children she already had, and was harmed by a law that was deliberately made vague so they could limit abortion rights. I shudder to think what could happen with this one!

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ekaterinv
2011-02-16 07:06 am UTC (link)

That is exactly what these laws are for: controlling women.

It's like the anti-gay marriage crowd. When you talk to one of them for long enough, you inevitably come up against, "we must 'protect' women, and the only way women can be 'protected' is in a marriage to a man, otherwise the women will go around sleeping with whoever and making decisions and hurting themselves in the process! Marriage exists to 'protect' women!" They've learned the codewords, they know how to disguise what they want as something else, but push them far enough and the truth comes out.

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telegramsam
2011-02-16 01:32 pm UTC (link)

I vaguely remember some kerfluffle in, I think, maybe Saudi Arabia or some other country with male-guardianship laws to control women's movement (can't leave home without your husband/brother/father, wimmins! too bad!), and when somebody challenged these laws, there were actually a few women coming out protesting that they had a "right" to male guardianship. I wept at the state of this world, to say the least.

Funny how many Americans like think they are so much more "sophisticated" than those "backwards" foriegners...

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	kookaburra 2011-02-16 04:34 pm UTC (link)
	IME, the staunchest defenders of patriarchy are often women. I can't even really get angry, just sad. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	telegramsam 2011-02-16 04:39 pm UTC (link)
	It's often the result of a mixture of fear of change and simple ignorance. If you've never known life any other way, the idea freedom can be terrifying. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	ajatshatru 2011-02-20 02:43 am UTC (link)
	This. Sadly :( (Reply to this)(Parent)