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Unborn Victims Of Violence Act Term Paper

Unborn Victims of Violence Act When reading the current news, a law like The Unborn Victims of Violence Act at first makes sense to many people. The whole country watched as a beautiful expectant mother, Laci Peterson, disappeared. The media marked the day her son, who was to be named Conor, would have been born. People were outraged when their bodies were found washed up from San Francisco Bay, and when the husband and expectant father was charged with the murder. Since Conor was so close to being born, and since he likely would have survived if he had been born on December 24 instead of disappearing with his mother, many believe that Scott Peterson should be charged with two murders. However, currently the law takes the view that unborn children have no legal standing until they are born.

The issue of when life begins has affected multiple issues, including in vitro fertilization, stem cell research and cloning. Scientists can now clone stem cells taken from embryos, but this destroys the embryo, which abortion...

While the Supreme Court has supported a woman's right to an abortion, the federal government does not support stem cell research. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay connected it clearly to abortion when he said, "All life is precious." (Staff writers, 2001)
Ostensibly, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act was passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law by the President because of events like the Laci Peterson murder and a concern that only the mother would be viewed as a murder victim when the unborn child also died. The Federal law applies only to federal crimes -- for instance, bank robberies, which are federal crimes, or murders committed on military bases. The law states that it applies when a child "in utero" harmed, or killed, at any point in the pregnancy (Rosenberg, 2003). It is that part that makes people in favor of abortion choice nervous. They have two criticisms.

First, the wording of the law identifies…

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Bibliography

Associated Press (AP). 2004. "Fetus-rights bill passes Senate." Newsday, March 26.

Rosenberg, Debra. 2003. "The War Over Fetal Rights." Newsweek, June 9.

Scully, Sean. 1998. "Cloning debate in Congress focuses on when life begins." The Washington Times, Feb. 23.

Staff writers. 2001. "Unborn Victims of Violence Act." Special Delivery, Sept. 22.
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