Unborn Victims of Violence Act


The Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 is a United States law which recognizes an embryo or fetus in utero as a legal victim, if they are injured or killed during the commission of any of over 60 listed federal crimes of violence. The law defines "child in utero" as "a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb."
The law is codified in two sections of the United States Code: Title 18, Chapter 1, §1841 and Title 10, Chapter 22 §919a.
The law applies only to certain offenses over which the United States government has jurisdiction, including certain crimes committed on federal properties, against certain federal officials and employees, and by members of the military. In addition, it covers certain crimes that are defined by statute as federal offenses wherever they occur, no matter who commits them, such as certain crimes of terrorism.
Because of principles of federalism embodied in the United States Constitution, federal criminal law does not apply to crimes prosecuted by the individual states. However, 38 states also recognize the fetus or "unborn child" as a crime victim, at least for purposes of homicide or feticide.
The legislation was both hailed and vilified by various legal observers who interpreted the measure as a step toward granting legal personhood to human fetuses, even though the bill explicitly contained a provision excepting abortion, stating that the bill would not "be construed to permit the prosecution" "of any person for conduct relating to an abortion for which the consent of the pregnant woman, or a person authorized by law to act on her behalf", "of any person for any medical treatment of the pregnant woman or her unborn child" or "of any woman with respect to her unborn child."
However, the reticence of a federal law to authorize federal prosecution of a particular act committed under federal jurisdiction does not prevent states from passing their own laws against the act committed under their jurisdiction. Meanwhile, the definition of all unborn babies as "members of the species homo sapiens" in section says essentially what proposed "personhood" laws say. Sponsors of such proposals say such legal language will trigger the "collapse" clause in Roe v. Wade, by establishing what they suggest Roe said must be established for legal abortion to end. Several state supreme courts have ruled that sections through are not threatened by Roe, but no court has addressed whether Roe can survive the suggested triggering of its "collapse" clause by section.
The bill contained the alternate title of Laci and Conner's Law after the California mother and fetus whose deaths were widely publicized during the later stages of the congressional debate on the bill in 2003 and 2004. Husband Scott Peterson was convicted of double homicide under California's fetal homicide law.

History

Prior to enactment of the federal law, the fetus in utero was, as a general rule, not recognized as a victim of federal crimes of violence. Thus, in a federal crime that injured a pregnant woman and killed the child in utero," no homicide was recognized, in most cases.
One exception was the "born-alive rule," applied in US v. Spencer, 839 F.2d 1341, a case in which the child was born alive and died shortly afterwards; therefore there was no doubt that the decedent was once a living person under the law.
The Unborn Victims of Violence Act was first introduced in Congress in 1999 by then-Congressman Lindsey Graham. It passed the House of Representatives in 1999 and 2001, but not the Senate. In 2003, the bill was reintroduced in the House as H.R. 1997 by Rep. Melissa Hart of Pennsylvania. It was ultimately co-sponsored by 136 other members of the House before it passed by a vote of 254 in favor to 163 against on February 26, 2004. After several amendments were rejected, it was passed in the Senate by a vote of 61-38 on March 25, 2004. It was signed into law by President George W. Bush on April 1, 2004.

Signing

At the signing ceremony, the President was joined on stage by men and women who had lost family members in two-victim crimes, including Laci Peterson's mother, Sharon Rocha. During his remarks at the ceremony, Bush said, "Any time an expectant mother is a victim of violence, two lives are in the balance, each deserving protection, and each deserving justice. If the crime is murder and the unborn child's life ends, justice demands a full accounting under the law." Senator John Kerry, his main opponent in the 2004 Presidential election, voted against the bill, saying, "I have serious concerns about this legislation because the law cannot simultaneously provide that a fetus is a human being and protect the right of the mother to choose to terminate her pregnancy."

Support

organizations strongly supported the act. On July 3, 2003, the U.S. Judiciary Committee heard testimony for and against passage of the UVVA. Feminists for Life of America President Serrin Foster submitted her own testimony, as well as that of Sharon Rocha. In addition, Foster argued against passage of an alternative bill by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, which would have provided "additional punishment for certain crimes against women when the crimes cause an interruption in the normal course of their pregnancies" but not treated the unborn child as a second victim. "We are asking our elected representatives to honestly answer the question in the case of Laci Peterson and baby Conner," Foster asked. "Was there one victim or two? Those who support the single-victim substitute would deny women justice."

Opposition

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act was strongly opposed by most pro-choice organizations, on grounds that the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision said that the human fetus is not a "person" under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and that if the fetus were a Fourteenth Amendment "person," then they would have a constitutional right to life. However, the laws of 38 states also recognize the human fetus as the legal victim of homicide during the entire period of prenatal development or during part of the prenatal period. Legal challenges to these laws, arguing that they violate Roe v. Wade or other U.S. Supreme Court precedents, have been uniformly rejected by both the federal and the state courts, including the supreme courts of California, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota.
Some prominent legal scholars who strongly support Roe v. Wade, such as Prof. Walter Dellinger of Duke University Law School, Richard Parker of Harvard, and Sherry F. Colb of Rutgers Law School, have written that fetal homicide laws do not conflict with Roe v. Wade.
A principle that allows language in law to not conflict with Roe, which logically should trigger Roe's "collapse" clause, was explained in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 US 490. Until such language becomes the basis for laws that specify penalties for abortion, the issue is not even before the court, of whether or not such language conflicts with Roe, and if so, which should be struck down.

Text of the law

The operative portion of the law, now codified as of the United States Code, reads as follows:
Sec. 1841. Protection of unborn children
The provision amending the Uniform Code of Military Justice is functionally the same, except for minor technical points.