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Information on the
Federal Unborn Victims Law:
National
Right To Life's Unborn Victims of Violence Page
Picture
of Traci Marciniak holding her son Zachariah, who was
killed in utero, at his funeral
Testimony
of Tracy Marciniak.
John
Ensign's Letter On UBVA
Answering
Arguments Against SB 299
Nevada LIFE Testimony
On SB 299:
Nevada
LIFE Testimony On SB 299, The NV Lacy and Connor's Law April 6,
2007.
Nevada
LIFE Supplemental Testimony On SB 299, The NV Lacy and
Connor's Law April 6, 2007.
Nevada LIFE Press
Releases:
One
Victim or Two?
Nevada's Laci and Connor's Law Gets
Hearing Friday,
April 4, 2007.
Nevada
LIFE Press Release on Laci and Connor's Law Feb. 25, 2004
Nevada
LIFE Press Release on Laci and Connor's Law March 18, 2004
Nevada
Unborn Victims Bill Hearing April 6, 2007
SB 299:
Text
of SB 299.
Follow
SB 299
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Answering
the Hollow, Indefensible Arguments Against SB 299.
Planned
Parenthood, the ACLU, NOW and the Nevada League of Women's
Voters opposed SB 299 wholly or in part for the following
reasons. Here are our answers to those objections as noted
in our letter
to the committee and in testimony
to the committee.
1.
Laws like this have not conflicted with Roe. According to our colleagues at National Right To Life, there
have been nine challenges to laws like SB
299 which “were at least based in part on Roe v. Wade
and/or denial of equal protection, unless other wise noted.”
Please see the attachment “Constitutional
Challenges To State Unborn Victims (Fetal Homicide) Laws.”
National
Right To Life makes this observation regarding the Supreme
Court’s Landmark Abortion Case Webster v. Reproductive Health
Services.
In
the 1989 case of Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (492
U.S. 490), the U.S. Supreme Court refused to invalidate a
Missouri statute (Mo. Rev. Stat. 1.205.1) that declares that "the life of each human being begins
at conception," that "unborn children have protectable
interests in life, health, and well-being," and that all
state laws "shall be interpreted and construed to
acknowledge on behalf of the unborn child at every stage of
development, all the rights, privileges, and immunities
available to other persons, citizens, and residents of this
state," to the extent permitted by the Constitution and
U.S. Supreme Court rulings. A lower court had held that
Missouri's law "impermissibl[y]" adopted "a
theory of when life begins," but the Supreme Court
nullified this ruling, and held that a state is free to enact
laws that recognize unborn children, so long as the state does
not include restrictions on abortion that Roe forbids. (“Constitutional
Challenges To State Unborn Victims (Fetal Homicide) Laws.")
2.
Laws like this will not restrict or impact the availability of
abortion.
Sharron
Rocha, Laci Peterson’s mother and Connor Peterson’s
grandmother notes that California' s
unborn victim law has been in effect
since 1970 and has
not affected the availability
of legal abortion-nor do unborn victims laws in 33 other
states. California
leads the nation in abortions and Mrs. Rocha rightly says that
it was California’s unborn victims provision that was used to
convict Scott Peterson of murdering her grandson Connor.
The committee has a briefing from Mr. Dan Yu regarding
Unborn Victims laws in these other states and Planned
Parenthood’s charge that it is based on National Right To
Life’s memo on this is irrelevant as long as they have cited
those laws correctly.
3.
We believe the intent to harm
the fetus or knowledge that the woman is pregnant with child is
irrelevant.
The
principle of transferred intent covers the unborn.
A Minnesota
Supreme Court ruled in upholding the Minnesota
unborn victims law and said , “The possibility that a female
homicide victim of childbearing age may be pregnant is a
possibility that an assaulter may not safely exclude." [State
v. Merrill, 450 N.W.2d 318 (Minn. 1990)].
In
addition, the text of the Federal Unborn Victims Law says
“An offense under this section does not require proof
that--`(i) the person engaging in the conduct had knowledge or
should have had knowledge that the victim of the underlying
offense was pregnant; or `(ii) the defendant intended to cause
the death of, or bodily injury to, the unborn child.”
4.
SB 299 does not need exemptions for killing unborn children
pre-viability.
Other states have language which protect unborn children
before viability and they have stood constitutional challenges.
Pennsylvania
justices rejected this argument, "to accept
that a fetus is not biologically alive until it can survive
outside of the womb would be illogical, as such a concept would
define fetal life in terms that depend on external conditions,
namely, the state of medical technology. . viability outside of
the womb is immaterial to the question of whether the
defendant's actions have caused a cessation of the biological
life of the fetus ..."
The
Federal Unborn Victims Of Violence Act
itself says the law applies to “a child, who is in utero at
the time the conduct takes place.”
A
California Court said that CA’s unborn
provision would apply to the unborn after the embryonic period,
7 or 8 weeks. There
is no need to fear a lack of exceptions for
pre-viable unborn children will be unconstitutional.
5.
Polls indicate that there is clear support for Unborn Victims
laws like this even when a person opposes abortion.
Please see our attached sheet “One
Victim or Two?” from National Right To Life.
It contains three polls from Fox News, Newsweek.
All three show overwhelming support.
6.
Planned Parenthood also argued that this bill would not protect
any pregnant women. We noted at the hearing that
this argues against the words of assailants themselves.
For instance,
"Tracy
Marciniak’s son Zachary was brutally murdered in the womb by
his father (Marciniak’s husband) just before he was to be
born. In Wisconsin
there were no unborn victims laws and the assailant was only
charged with and convicted of first-degree reckless injury, and
for false imprisonment. Before
his trial he said that he would never have assaulted
Marciniak if he had thought he could be charged with killing an
unborn baby. The
words of this assailant say loud and clear that this will
protect women as well as children." (From Don
Nelson's testimony).
Nevada
LIFE supports SB 299 because there are
clearly two victims, it will provide added protections to the
unborn child and their mothers, and prosecuting the crime
against the unborn with the same laws as which the state would
prosecute crimes against the mother are more fitting and satisfy
the demands of justice far better than 1-10 in prison and a
maximum $10,000 fine. We all know that the unborn is
a unique separate human being. It's time the law
recognized it.
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