Fwd: Re: "Whole-Birth Abortion" Law

[Rick Duncan]

Offlist,a colleague from the list confidently asserts
that "once the baby is wholly outside the body of the
mother, anyone who kills it commits murder." I would
hope so, but I am not sure that the issue would be
this easy if a prosecution were brought against the
abortionist and his accomplices.

George Will recently reported that at least 2 United
States Senators believe that a women is entitled to
a dead baby when she chooses to have an abortion:

"Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum asked Democrats
Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Frank Lautenberg of New
Jersey this: Suppose during an attempted partial-birth
abortion the infant, instead of being just almost
delivered, with only a few inches of skull remaining
in the birth canal, slips entirely out of the canal.
Is killing the born baby still a 'choice'? Feingold
and Lautenberg said it was still a matter between a
mother and her abortionist. (C-Span captured this
exchange. The Congressional Record was subsequently
falsified.)"

Although the issue should be as easy as our colleague
asserts, sadly I am not sure it is so easy under the
Supreme Court's abortion decrees.

As I said, there is anecdotal evidence that when
babies do slip entirely out of the birth canal,
abortionists complete their medical service by
putting the child to death. Since these deaths occur
during an abortion, there is no autopsy or routine
police investigation. The purpose of a "whole birth"
abortion law would be to make clear that this *is*
murder and to require anyone with knowledge of the
facts to file a report with law enforcement
authorities (who would then, presumably, investigate
the murder of the tiny human being). Does everyone
agree with our colleague that this law is clearly
constitutional under Roe/Casey/Stenberg?

   --Rick Duncan



=====
Rick Duncan (conlawprof at yahoo.com)

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