In a shocking and heartbreaking story that seems to defy all reason, Angela Hatcher of NBC 12 in Virginia reported today that a mother who killed her newborn baby by suffocating it under bed sheets cannot and will not be charged of murder due to a loop hole in Virginia state law. According to the law, if a child is still connected to its mother by umbilical cord, it has not yet assumed its own identity, and is therefore the property of the mother.
Investigator Tracy Emerson said that the mother “could shoot the baby, stab the baby as long as it’s still attached to her in some form by umbilical cord or something and it’s no crime in the state of Virginia… Simply because the mother was there, and the baby had not taken its own identity allegedly at this point, it makes the baby not its own person.”
Emerson went on to say that the baby was full-term, healthy, and that the mother was aware of her pregnancy and had even received prenatal care. Could it get any worse?
Hatcher reported that there had been “similar case” in Campbell County before and investigators like Tracy Emerson had approached lawmakers about closing this terrible loophole. Apparently, no representatives were willing to alter the law because it was “too close to the abortion issue.”
Really? I’d like to see a normal person try to justify this heinous act of murder, or even justify ignoring it, because they were afraid to bring up “the abortion issue.”
This past summer, the federal appeals court in Richmond voted to uphold a ban on partial birth abortion. That means the horrific and gruesome practice of killing children in the womb is illegal, while at the same time, a woman who goes through the pains of labor is allowed to murder her child? It’s all infanticide, and it all should be illegal.
The partial birth abortion ban was a huge victory for pro-life forces in Virginia. How cynical that a victory for children in the womb would be followed by an injustice for those who have survived to make it out? Fortunately Governor-elect Bob McDonnell has said that he will sign any law that makes it to his desk regarding this issue. State Senator Steve Newman told local news reporters that he has already started drafting a bill.
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