Congress: Harming fetus is a crime

By Helen Dewar
The Washington Post

	Mike DeWine
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WASHINGTON — The Senate yesterday gave final approval to legislation that would make it a crime to injure or kill a fetus during a federal crime of violence, overriding critics' claims that the bill defines the start of human life in a way that could undermine abortion rights.

The 61-38 vote came after a far closer vote of 50-49 to reject an alternative favored by abortion-rights advocates that would have imposed the same penalties without reference to the legal status of a fetus. Democratic Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of Washington voted against the final bill and for the alternative.

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act, given new impetus by the slayings of Laci Peterson and her unborn son in California more than a year ago, was passed by the House last month. "The best way to explain this bill is through a real-life incident that most Americans relate to," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., joined this week on Capitol Hill by Peterson's mother, Sharon Rocha, in pushing for the bill's passage.

The legislation now goes to President Bush, who strongly supported its passage. "We must continue to build a culture of life in our country, a compassionate society in which every child is welcomed in life and protected by law," Bush said in a statement last night.

What the bill means Under the bill, violence against a pregnant woman would be regarded as two separate crimes: one against the woman, the other against her unborn child, defined as "a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb."

Anti-abortion forces have passed two narrowly focused initiatives in the past two years, fulfilling a strategy aimed at incremental gains in the absence of a congressional majority to ban abortion outright. It follows approval last year of legislation to ban a specific late-term procedure, known in the medical profession as "intact dilation and extraction" but referred to by opponents as "partial-birth abortion."

The new legislation covers slayings during the commission of 68 federal offenses, such as crimes on military bases and other federal property, drug-related shootings and threats against federal witnesses. Twenty-nine states, including Washington, have unborn-victim laws, although some do not cover entire pregnancies.

The Senate bill's mostly Republican backers denied that the language suggesting life begins at conception was intended to erode abortion rights and embryonic stem-cell research. But opponents said this was the intent and likely result of the bill, because it will be easier to attack the legality of abortion if it is deemed to be the killing of a human being.

	Dianne Feinstein

The bill specifically excluded legally performed abortions from criminal sanctions, and Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, its chief sponsor, said it "has nothing to do with abortions." But by giving new legal status to a fetus, it "will clearly place into federal law a definition of life that will chip away at the right to choose as outlined in Roe v. Wade," the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

Anti-abortion and abortion-rights groups lobbied extensively for and against DeWine's bill, respectively, and senators employed many of the same tactics used during earlier debates. Among them were large color photos of fetal violence, including one showing a woman and infant in an open casket, that Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., displayed on the Senate floor.

The narrowly rejected alternative, sponsored by Feinstein, would have created a separate offense for terminating or interrupting a pregnancy in an attack on a woman. It would have imposed the same penalties as those prescribed by DeWine's bill but without recognizing the fetus as a person.

Four moderate Republicans joined most Democrats in supporting Feinstein's proposal. On final passage, however, 13 Democrats joined all but two Republicans in voting for the bill. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, made a rare appearance in the Senate to vote for Feinstein's proposal and against the bill.

The Senate also rejected, 53-46, a proposal by Murray that would have provided new benefits to victims of domestic violence. Cantwell voted for the Murray proposal.

Murray and Cantwell votes were provided by The Associated Press; statements by Graham and Bush were reported by the Los Angeles Times.

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