Life Issues Forum
March 30, 2001
A startling study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that the most common cause of death among pregnant women in Maryland is homicide. (285 JAMA, 1455-59. March 21, 2001) One week after this study appeared, JAMA published a report on abuse of pregnant women in North Carolina, finding that 6.1% of all pregnant women in North Carolina are abused during pregnancy. (285 JAMA 1581-84, March 28, 2001) These alarming findings coincide with ever increasing news reports of pregnant women who are the targets of their partners' violence precisely because they are pregnant.
Rae Carruth's capital murder trial is one of the more publicized cases of partner violence against a pregnant woman. In January of this year, Carruth, a former football player for the Carolina Panthers, was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder for hiring three hit-men to kill his girlfriend, Cherica Adams, and their unborn child because Adams refused to submit to an abortion. In February, Erik Bullock of Arkansas was convicted in a similar plot. Bullock enlisted three men to stage a robbery and punch his girlfriend, Shiwona Pace, in the stomach in order to kill her unborn child. Pace, like Adams, refused to undergo an abortion.
South Carolina and Arkansas are two of the thirty-one states that protect unborn children from the violent acts of third parties. On the federal level, no such protection exists. But there is an effort underway in Congress to change this. Shortly after Congress's April recess, the House of Representatives is expected to vote on the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (H.R. 503, "UVVA"), which would protect unborn children—during all stages of development—from the violence of others. Because of Roe v. Wade, abortion performed with the consent of the woman is excepted from the bill.
Opponents of the bill raise some rather specious objections to it. They claim the bill does nothing to combat domestic violence nor to protect women. They assail the bill as a backdoor attack on Roe, and have attempted to offer a substitute bill that fails to recognize the unborn child and merely adds an increased penalty for interrupting a "pregnancy."
Representative Melissa Hart (R-PA) rebutted these arguments, by pointing out during the Judiciary Committee's markup on the UVVA, that domestic violence is domestic because it is against the family, which includes unborn children. Moreover, protecting an unborn child from violence, also protects his or her mother from violence.
The bill will have no effect on Roe, which established a legal right for a woman to terminate the life of her unborn child. Roe has no bearing on the legal status of unborn children outside of the abortion context. The Supreme Court, therefore, has left open the opportunity for states to pass laws to protect unborn children from other forms of violence, and for the federal government to protect them through the UVVA.
The proposed substitute bill envisions the woman as the sole victim, ignoring the central fact: as the Carruth and Bullock cases illustrate, women sometimes are harmed precisely because offenders are targeting their unborn child. And, by creating an enhanced penalty for interrupting a "pregnancy" and supposing the woman is the only victim, the substitute bill begs an important question: What is it about a "pregnancy" that merits an added criminal penalty? Clearly, it is the unique and precious life of a child, a child whom some mothers risk their lives to save.
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Maureen Kramlich is a public policy analyst with the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities