NC Right to Life’s Opposition to SB13 / Injury to Pregnant Woman
Today, Senator Doug Berger (D) introduced SB13 / Injury to Pregnant Woman. On the House side, Rep. Folwell (R) has indicated he too will soon be introducing a similar bill. Since SB13 / Injury to Pregnant Woman recognizes only one victim, North Carolina Right to Life cannot support it and will in fact oppose it. We write to ask you and all those within your sphere of influence to join North Carolina Right to Life in opposing SB13 for the reasons stated below.

North Carolina Right to Life supports legislation that recognizes the unborn child as a second victim when a crime is committed against the mother and her unborn child is injured or killed. The laws of thirty-five other states recognize the unborn child as a second victim (http://www.nrlc.org/Unborn_victims/Statehomicidelaws092302.html). However, North Carolina law is gravely deficient – recognizing only the “pregnant woman” as the single victim in these barbaric crimes.

Public policy should reflect the loss of two victims, not just one. Single victim laws do not allow the State to prosecute defendants for the taking of two lives and therefore cannot bring justice for these victims or their families.

Both federal and state courts have universally upheld fetal homicide laws (http://www.nrlc.org/Unborn_victims/statechallenges.html). Abortion proponent Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has refused to recognize the unborn child in any legal context, offering substitute language specifically removing any reference whatsoever to the child in utero. In this way, SB13 / Injury to Pregnant Woman is similar to the Feinstein single-victim substitute that Congress ultimately rejected.

SB13/Injury to Pregnant Woman omits any reference to the unborn child, and like the Feinstein bill, would say to the victims’ families that there was no second victim; this perpetuates the horrendous injustice already committed against them.

“I hope that every legislator will clearly understand that adoption of such a single-victim amendment would be a painful blow to those, like me, who are left alive after a two-victim crime, because Congress would be saying that Conner and other innocent unborn victims like him are not really victims - indeed, that they never really existed at all. But our grandson did live. He had a name, he was loved, and his life was violently taken from him before he ever saw the sun … The application of a single victim law … would be even more offensive in the many cases that involved mothers who themselves survive criminal attacks, but who lose their babies in those crimes … A legislator who votes for the single victim amendment, however well motivated, votes to add injury to injury.” -Sharon Rocha, mother of slain Lacy Peterson and grandmother of Conner Peterson, her slain grandson.

In addition, SB13/Injury to Pregnant Woman draws an arbitrary line in a woman’s pregnancy, failing to provide any recognition of unborn victims who have not yet crossed that line because their lives were violently taken from them.

North Carolina Right to Life will, upon request, provide language that would recognize and bring justice for both the mother and her unborn child where violent crimes have been committed against them. Please feel free to contact us should you have any further questions in this regard: Barbara Holt, President, NC Right to Life (800) 392-6275 or Dorothy Yeung, Legislative Liaison, NC Right to Life – foreveryeung@msn.com