Gallup Poll says majority of Americans identify as pro-life

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

Actually, pregnant women have been charged with abuse based on their behaviors before the child was born (drugs, for example http://www.wspa.com/spa/news/local/a...charged/16838/ ) - and, for example, Conor Peterson's father was charged with his murder, even though he was still in utereo. There oughta be a law - and there is .http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unborn_...f_Violence_Act. So as a society we do believe some actions which impact an unborn baby are not only morally wrong, but legally.

Yeah...you can find a couple cases, but I've seen countless others that are never prosecuted. Shoot, most states won't even prosecute parents who kill their babies in car wrecks because they don't put them in car seats. And that's with definitive laws requiring the use of car seats.

[SWTXBelle]

Originally Posted by AOII Angel

Yeah...you can find a couple cases, but I've seen countless others that are never prosecuted. Shoot, most states won't even prosecute parents who kill their babies in car wrecks because they don't put them in car seats. And that's with definitive laws requiring the use of car seats.

Actually, I can found quite a few with very little research- and I can think of at least a handful of cases off the top of my head covered here in TX of parents who were prosecuted for the deaths of their children for their failure to properly secure them. Two weeks ago we had a case of a toddler who fell out of a truck. My brother is a police officer who ALWAYS writes up parents who he sees with unsecured children in their cars. I'm not sure how to find cases which weren't prosecuted - I would think they wouldn't be covered, and I guess I'm not searching using the correct terms. How did you find them? ( And yes, I realize we've gotten a little far afield here - but since AOIIAngel used the example of parents being prosecuted for a specific law, that's what I addressed.)

But in the final analysis, it doesn't matter whether or not the criminals are prosecuted - the issue is that as a point of law our society recognizes unborn children as having rights - limited rights, and rights which are subject (obviously!) to a great deal of moral and legal wrangling in order to support, but rights which do exist.

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

Actually, I can found quite a few with very little research- and I can think of at least a handful of cases off the top of my head covered here in TX of parents who were prosecuted for the deaths of their children for their failure to properly secure them. Two weeks ago we had a case of a toddler who fell out of a truck. My brother is a police officer who ALWAYS writes up parents who he sees with unsecured children in their cars. I'm not sure how to find cases which weren't prosecuted - I would think they wouldn't be covered, and I guess I'm not searching using the correct terms. How did you find them? ( And yes, I realize we've gotten a little far afield here - but since AOIIAngel used the example of parents being prosecuted for a specific law, that's what I addressed.)

But in the final analysis, it doesn't matter whether or not the criminals are prosecuted - the issue is that as a point of law our society recognizes unborn children as having rights - limited rights, and rights which are subject (obviously!) to a great deal of moral and legal wrangling in order to support, but rights which do exist.

I've personally seen the children come in dead because they aren't physically restrained. I did two years of general surgery residency at a Level 1 Trauma center. My attending, who was very active in national trauma surgery groups, was part of a movement to convince DAs around the country that yes, parents should be prosecuted for these cases. Few of the cases made it to courts because the DA felt the "parents had suffered enough already." The ones that do make it to court are the egregious ones like the one I personally witnessed- a morbidly obese woman was holding her 6 week old baby while driving. She got in a wreck and crushed her baby between the steering wheel and her body. Gruesome. Unfortunately, the parents had suffered enough on the countless kids I treated with severe head injuries after flying around a car unrestrained.

So far, the unborn really don't have any rights. See how many cases of crack mothers you can find that have been prosecuted. Babies are born EVERY SINGLE day in the US addicted to drugs. The state takes those babies away but RARELY goes after the mother.