Stirring Up a Hornet’s Nest

Read about the Ariel Castro kidnapping case in these links.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/08/ariel-castro-had-ropes-an_n_3237412.html

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/07/castro-berry-cleveland/2140619/

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57583428/ariel-castro-cleveland-kidnapping-suspect-helped-look-for-missing-girl/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2320564/Ariel-Castro-pictured-Suspect-Amanda-Berry-Gina-DeJesus-Michelle-Knight-kidnap-arrested--BROTHERS.html

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/05/tv_station_reports_berry_dejes.html

http://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/16/letter-asks-prosecutor-to-charge-ariel-castro-over-five-forced-abortions/

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/05/10/ariel-castro-cleveland-kidnapping-rape-charges.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57583620/michelle-knight-told-cops-ariel-castro-threatened-to-kill-her-if-amanda-berrys-baby-died/
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2013/0510/Could-Ariel-Castro-be-tried-for-murder-Case-would-be-unprecedented

The prosecutor in this horrible case is about to stir up a hornet’s nest.  Ariel Castro stands accused of kidnapping three women and holding them against their wills for ten years.  He repeatedly raped and sexually abused all three, impregnating two of them.  One of the women was impregnated five times.  Castro ended each of the five pregnancies by starving and beating the woman.  One child, now six years old, was born to another of the hostages.

Abortion and the question of when a fetus officially becomes human are sharply divisive issues in the United States at this time.  There are already arguments beginning over whether Castro’s termination of the pregnancies constituted feticide or homicide.  If the killings are declared to have been homicides, then Castro is eligible for the death penalty.  But, if the killings are declared to have been homicides, then the fetuses will have been declared to have been human.  Obviously, for supporters of abortion rights, this just will not be acceptable.

This places the abortion supporters into a tight spot.  Virtually everyone is agreed that Castro’s crimes against the three women (they were still legally children when he abducted them) are heinous and evil.  Abortion supporters may be forced into a corner where they have to downplay the seriousness of some of Castro’s crimes.  It is a corner of their own making.

This is, of course, a religious issue, but I believe that an atheist could come to the same conclusion that I have: the killings of the fetuses were murders.

Feticide Laws

On Tuesday, 23 October 2012, police in Walker, Louisiana (USA) responded to a 911 call to find that a man, possibly under the influence of psychoactive drugs, had stabbed his seven month pregnant wife and cut the baby out of her body.  There is an unconfirmed report that the child was stabbed in the head. 

The mother survived but the baby died.  The father has been charged with one charge of feticide and one charge of attempted second degree murder.  Second degree murder is a non-premeditated killing from an attack so dangerous that a result of death is a real possibility.

Thirty-eight of the fifty United States recognize the “unborn child” as a human homicide victim.  The laws vary in their details, with some covering differing periods of a pregnancy.

In 2004, then United States President George W. Bush signed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act which views unborn children as humans if they are injured or killed during the commission of a list of specific federal crimes, including terrorism.

The United States courts have declared that these laws do not apply to legal abortions.  My question is, “Why not?”  Is the only difference that the murdered child is wanted and the aborted child is not?