Abortion expansion and unborn victims of crime
Published on May 10th, 2013
by Kathleen M. Gallagher
The horrendous crimes that took place in a Cleveland house for the past ten years are so disturbing, they are difficult to comprehend: kidnappings, assaults, rapes, and God-knows-what-hasn’t come to light yet. Crimes against human life, all of them.
Now prosecutors in Ohio say they will file murder charges against the alleged perpetrator for purposefully terminating the pregnancies of his female captives against their will. One victim says she was pregnant at least five times over the years, and each time her abductor starved her and repeatedly punched her in the gut until she miscarried her baby.
These murder charges can be filed in Ohio because, since 1996, Ohio has had an “unborn victims of violence” law allowing infants, prior to their birth, to be classified as victims of assault or homicide. Tragically, New York State does not have such a law.
New York does, however, permit some criminal charges for violent attacks on unborn children such as those that occurred in Cleveland. The crime is called illegal “abortional act,” and it can bring a maximum penalty of seven years in prison.
Here’s the thing: the crime of “abortional act” and its consequences would be removed from New York’s laws if the “Reproductive Health Act’ is enacted. That’s right – if the abortion expansion proposal now under serious consideration in Albany is passed, there could be absolutely no criminal charges brought for such horrifying crimes. And New Yorkers can pretty much forget about ever making it a murder charge for someone to kill an unborn child, the way Ohio and 35 other states do. Nope, all criminal charges would be wiped off the books.
That’s not justice. That’s the opposite of justice, for both mothers and their children. Please, take action now.