If Mother Jones and the Huffington Post are all that you read, you might be led to believe that pro-life groups are trying to get laws passed that would allow the killing of abortion providers. Headlines like these, and the story they festoon, are what I’m talking about:
Revealed: The Group Behind the Bills that Could Legalize Killing Abortion Providers
Americans United For Life Behind Bills Seeking To Legalize Killing Abortion Providers
Well, surprise surprise, the lefties lie. The bills in question have nothing to do with making a justifiable homicide out of killing abortionists. Here’s what the bills are actually supposed to do.
Americans United for Life Vice President of Legal Affairs Denise Burke tells LifeNews.com the “anti-life media once again got their facts wrong” in reporting about AUL’s “Pregnant Woman’s Protection Act.”
She said the model legislation seeks to ensure that a pregnant woman and her unborn child are protected from criminal violence and that her decision to carry her child to term is respected and that the model legislation was drafted in direct response to the well-documented and growing problem of pregnancy-related violence against women.
And:
AUL’s “Pregnant Woman’s Protection Act” does not allow the killing of abortion practitioners but, as written, provides that a pregnant woman may use force to protect her unborn child when she reasonably believes that unlawful force is threatening her unborn child and that her use of force is immediately necessary to protect her unborn child. The language explicitly limits the permitted use of force to a pregnant woman and does not expand it to third parties. Thus, under the express terms of AUL’s carefully crafted and narrow language, the “Pregnant Woman’s Protection Act” could not be used to justify criminal violence against abortion providers or anyone else.
The AUL law, as it strikes me, is intended to boost both a woman’s choice to carry her child to term, and her inherent right of self-defense. Which of these do the HuffPosters and Mother Jonesers find so problematic as to warrant a smear campaign?
Not sure what these laws add. You already have the right to defend yourself (outside of Wisconsin, Illinois, and certain lefty citadel cities), and generally that right extends to defending the lives of others. Hard to see how an unborn child isn’t already covered by existing laws.
But, yes, the left lies. It’s what they do.
There seems to be a cultural component to this. Women in some cultures are killed for sullying a family’s honor, or by bringing shame to a family. We are seeing a few signs that this practice is occurring in this country as well as Canada and Australia. The targets of this legislation are male relatives motivated by an honor/shame ethos, and not abortion providers.
I’m not sure you actually read the articles in question. Neither law is restricted only to the pregnant woman; her family are included. So if an overprotective and gun-happy father decides to shoot the doctor his daughter has gone to for an abortion, that’s A-OK.
The point you SHOULD have made could only defend AUL, who drafted a more sane version of the bill; indeed, the one you reference is the one they intended. It is a VERY different beast from Nebraska LB 232, which was modified in several critical ways by lawmakers. It very specifically allows un-restricted third parties to commit “justifiable homicide” in defense of another, if – in their opinion – the person they are ‘protecting’ would be within their rights to do the same.
Even from a Leftist point of view, Roe v. Wade considers the unborn child a part of the mother, so, just like you can protect your body parts from bodily harm, you can protect the unborn child from bodily harm, because it’s YOUR body. You better not use guns though.
These bills add a clear case of defense action by a mother in favor of her unborn child. They may not add much, but they make cases more clear and make it harder to lock women up on “domestic violence” charges who act violently to stop their boyfriends attempts to halt the birth of a child said boyfriend does not want to support.