From Fetus to Baby

[Torog]

From fetus to baby
Townhall.com ^ | December 21, 2004 | Rich Lowry


In a spectacular murder case in Missouri, Lisa Montgomery strangled to death Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant. Montgomery cut open Stinnett's womb and kidnapped her child. This is a horrific crime that, like the Scott Peterson case, opens an uncomfortable window into our culture's tortured reasoning on anything related to unborn life.

During the coverage of the crime, the status of the Bobbie Jo Stinnett's unborn girl steadily changed. All at once on AOL News during the weekend, there were headlines tracking events in the case: "Woman Slain, Fetus Stolen"; "Woman Arrested, Baby Returned in Bizarre Murder"; "Infant in Good Health." Note how a "fetus" -- something for which American law and culture has very little respect -- was somehow instantly transformed into a "baby" and "infant" -- for which we have the highest respect. By what strange alchemy does that happen?

An AP story effected this magic transition all in one sentence: "Authorities said Montgomery, 36, confessed to strangling Bobbie Jo Stinnett of Skidmore, Mo., on Thursday, cutting out the fetus and taking the baby back to Kansas." At one point, when Montgomery was still at large, an Amber Alert went out about the Stinnett girl, putting news organizations in the strange position of reporting such an alert for what many of them were still calling a "fetus."

Given that fetuses are routinely destroyed in America (and legally can be destroyed up to the point of delivery), it was odd to see such an uproar about the welfare of one. Indeed, it is tempting to say that from a pure legal point of view, Lisa Montgomery simply killed the wrong victim, taking the life of the mom instead of the fetus.



But that's not entirely true. Earlier this year Congress passed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act partly in reaction to the Peterson case, making it a crime to harm an unborn baby while assaulting the mother. Kate Michelman, president of NARAL, complained that President Bush is doing "everything in his power to restrict a woman's right to choose." Right to choose what? To have her baby harmed by an assailant?

Pro-choicers realize that recognizing the legal status of a fetus in any way undermines a crucial philosophical support of the pro-choice position -- that a baby in the womb has no rights that we are bound to respect. The Missouri "Unborn Child" law, which is in play in the Stinnett case, says "unborn children have protectable interests in life, health, and well-being." The attitude behind that law is impossible to square with the animating principle of Roe v. Wade, which protects any abortion, any time.



The Stinnett case is unusual, but violence against pregnant women -- usually committed by the biological fathers -- is not. According to The Washington Post, homicide is the leading cause of death in pregnant women. It is partly because the boyfriends or lovers decide they don't want the "fetus." As the Post put it in explaining one typical murder, the father "at first denied it was his child, then pressed for an abortion, then plotted murder." "It seems to me that these guys hope against hope for a miscarriage or an abortion, but when everything else fails, they take the life of the woman to avoid having the baby," Jack Levin of Northeastern University told the Post.



When we mourn not just for the women, but for the babies destroyed in such terrible acts, we commit a kind of transgression against the strictest pro-choice orthodoxy. Pro-choicers have a hard time explaining why, if Bill Clinton was right that abortion should be "legal, safe and rare," the practice should be rare. One reason is that there is a continuity between the "fetus" and "baby."



Otherwise, why do we rejoice over ultrasound images of the unborn? Why do we give them names? Why do we pray for their health and happiness? Why are we so quick to go from calling them fetuses to babies?

Torog Reviewed by Torog on 12-23-2004. From Fetus to Baby From fetus to baby Townhall.com ^ | December 21, 2004 | Rich Lowry In a spectacular murder case in Missouri, Lisa Montgomery strangled to death Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant. Montgomery cut open Stinnett's womb and kidnapped her child. This is a horrific crime that, like the Scott Peterson case, opens an uncomfortable window into our culture's tortured reasoning on anything related to unborn life. During the coverage of the crime, the status of the Bobbie Jo Rating: 5

[Torog]

Howdy Y'all,

I was angry over the use of the term fetus,being used in regards to this incident..I believe that Life begins at conception..the child-is a child-from the git-go,in my book..What say you ?

[jacquelyne]

Thats true its so sad.There are circumstances where things can be different.8mths is a baby not a foetus

[F L E S H]

Exactly. At 8 months, it's a baby, not a foetus. But in my mind there's nothing wrong with abortion. Torog's nice picture shows an abortion at 23 weeks, but if you're stupid enough to wait that long you deserve to go to jail. Abortions are ok up to about 12-13 weeks. After that, it's too late, face the consequence.

[Ed Ward MD]

3rd trimester. Once you get there. It is a baby and a viable life. Not before. Just my opinion based on medical fact and not BS.

Ed

My Best to You and Yours,

A Caring Parent Is A Terrible Thing To Waste.
12,000 to 18,000 NCP's snuff themselves every year.
One every 38 minutes. A Caring Parent Is A Terrible Thing To Waste.
Stop the Tyranny Now!

It's 2004!
Do you know where your grandchildren are?
Do you know where your children are?

24,000 of 36,000 MA Restraining Orders Granted for:
Fear of abuse not even an abuse allegation.
Do you know where your grandchildren's children will be?

At least 9 million NCPs are behind on CS.
Estimates of 1/2 a million already jailed.

Ed Ward, MD,
Founder, LA-CRC, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LA-CRC/
edward19(at)cox.net (at) = @ (for the @ crawlers) my email.
http://thepriceofliberty.org/ward.htm
https://www.quickbase.com/db/99r7qj9...sineConsulting (Class action lawsuit state info)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/louisi...rightscouncil/ (LA state info)
http://www.FIRMncp.com
Learn about your Family and Individual Constitutional Rights and this governments Constitutional Restrictions and Vote.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search

5 Women gang rape a criminal and torture him. Only 2 are actually charged. Prison terms given for rape, torture, attempted murder and kidnapping? 4 months. I repeat. 4 MONTHS. Where is Equality? "You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant" of judicial gendercide. After all, according to the DA. "No one was hurt". Mary Franks and "The Cucumber Incident".

5 years of collecting child support and no one even bothered to see if the child was real. Trevino.

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[pisshead]

but at some point, you're stopping the fetus from reaching that stage where it's wrong to kill him/her. at what point are you denying that something will without a doubt become a life? the fetus from the moment conception starts will reach that stage eventually, won't it? why is it okay to kill it sooner, rather than later?

just because maybe it can't feel pain, doesn't mean you can take the life away.

i don't know. i've really come around on abortion, i'm totally against it. i can't help but think of it as a culture of evil. it literally was brought to us en masse in large part by the rockefeller family and their population funds...kissinger, them type of people.

i recommend reading the rockefeller by gary allen for more on that. posted some of it or all of it, i can't remember.

[Nullific]

An unborn child is a fetus, and the human population is large enough as it is. I believe in reincarnation before anything else, so if a fetus is aborted it seems they would move on to another body and maybe have a better next life.

[juggalo420]

i say its not a baby until it can live outside of the womb.

[Conservatoker]

You guys obviosly don't have any kids. Otherwise you would see this much differently. Try telling me that "it's not a baby" as I am watching video ultrasound of my daughter sucking her thumb @ four months after conception.

Until you have kids and unless you have the heart to really embrace what that miracle of life is about, you can not understand how wrong any abortion is.

[juggalo420]

You guys obviosly don't have any kids. Otherwise you would see this much differently. Try telling me that "it's not a baby" as I am watching video ultrasound of my daughter sucking her thumb @ four months after conception.

Until you have kids and unless you have the heart to really embrace what that miracle of life is about, you can not understand how wrong any abortion is.

first of all life isnt a miracle its biology. and while an ultrasound of your daughter is proof enough for you, it is not for other people. They view the test of life is whether or not the fetus can live indepedantly from the mother.