Abortion bill tabled

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Michael

That bill that was worded as to legalize the murder of abortion doctors has come up against too much protest and has thus been tabled.

By a vote of 61 to 4, the legislators agreed to “table” the bill, known as HB 1171. The proposed law would have expanded the definition of justifiable homicide to include killing by a family member “in the lawful defense of … his or her husband, wife, parent, child, master, mistress, or servant, or the unborn child of any such enumerated person.”

By tabling the bill, the legislators merely agreed to set aside for future consideration. But it is a parliamentary procedure that typically ends discussion of the proposal for the current legislative session.

The bill was introduced in late January by Phil Jensen, a Republican legislator from Rapid City, and is believed to be the first of its kind in the nation. Jensen was one of the lawmakers to vote to table the proposal but three of the bill’s other supporters opposed the action.

In the interest of continuing the discussion from my original post on the matter, I include this:

Many states have laws that permit individuals to protect others with deadly force. But Elizabeth Nash, a policy analyst at the Guttmacher Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based pro-choice group that has been tracking state abortion laws since the early 1970s, said the proposed law was the first of its kind that could be construed to provide legal protection for committing murder in order to prevent conduct likely to result in the death of an embryo or fetus.

In summary: the bill would have put the defense of a fetus on the same level as the defense of one’s father or child.

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It’s okay to kill abortion doctors

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Michael

Or at least that’s the idea some Republicans in South Dakota want to pass into law.

The bill, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, was introduced in late January by Phil Jensen, a Republican legislator from Rapid City.

If passed, it would provide protection to a family member who kills “in the lawful defense of … his or her husband, wife, parent, child, master, mistress, or servant, or the unborn child of any such enumerated person” by defining the killing as a justifiable homicide.

Emphasis mine.

I hope this bill is destined to be aborted itself, but South Dakota is pretty fanatical about the whole issue. Fortunately, the wording makes it a moot issue since federal law trumps state in these matters and, well, it isn’t exactly legal to allow murder.

Of course, the whole purpose of this part of the bill is being spun a different way.

Jensen insisted the bill “has nothing to do with abortion” and would merely bar prosecutors from pressing charges against a family member who kills an assailant attacking a pregnant relative.

“Let’s say an ex-boyfriend finds out his ex-girlfriend is pregnant with his baby and decides to beat on her abdomen to kill the unborn child,” Jensen said. “This is an illegal act and the purpose of this bill is to bring continuity to South Dakota code as it relates to the unborn child.”

Too bad that isn’t what the bill actually says, huh?

The way Jensen is trying to frame the bill wouldn’t make it unique. Other states have given or sought to give protections to the fetuses of pregnant women. And to an extent I agree with them. We give police, federal agents, and elected politicians more protection under the law in many cases. The reason is because they hold a special place in society. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say expectant mothers hold a special place as well. Of course, the motivation for those bills is always to protect the “unborn child”, not the actual human being, but the result is a good one, I think; I accept it on pragmatic grounds.

It’s just unfortunate that the results of Jensen’s crappy bill would be the legalization of murder in South Dakota. That isn’t very pragmatic.

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