Virginia's House of Delegates has already passed, and their Senate is currently considering, bills (House Bill No. 1 - in two parts: Part I & Part II) which include the following language, providing that unborn children have all the rights of post-natal Virginians, and amend the state's wrongful death statutes. They seem to cover all the bases in their definition, too:
As used in this section, the term "unborn children" or "unborn child" shall include any unborn child or children or the offspring of human beings from the moment of conception until birth at every stage of biological development.I'll assume that "moment of conception" means "moment of fertilization." I'll assume that "offspring" is some ultra-specific synonym for "developing zygote/fetus." This post primarily examines the implications of the wrongful death statute alterations.
Wrongful Death: A Primer
A wrongful death is a death which results from negligence, a wrongful act, or a default of action by a person, corporation, ship or vessel. Not all wrongful deaths are prosecuted as murders; the state does allow for the possibility of tragic deadly accidents that weren't the fault of any particular person, but (for example) shoddy engineering (an escalator motor in severe disrepair goes haywire and pulls several people into the mechanism), poor maintenance (a tour bus company didn't maintain the brakes on one of its buses, resulting in a deadly accident), or manufacturer negligence (such as when pharmaceutical companies distribute medications with suboptimal dosages). Any of these can be held liable under wrongful death statutes.
The purpose of wrongful death statutes is to spell out the circumstances under which people or entities can be sued for damages by the relatives, spouses, or proper representatives of the person(s) who were the victim(s) of the wrongful death(s). Virginia House Bill No. 1 amends the existing language to include unborn children as permissible victims for the purposes of the statute. Thus, the relatives, spouses, or proper representatives of unborn child who is determined to have died as the result of a wrongful act, neglect, or default of action of a person, corporation, ship, or vessel, now have standing to sue for damages. Previously, these provisions applied only to post-natal human beings.
Mississippi Redux?
So, what does this revision to the wrongful death statutes do, exactly? And how does it differ from the failed personhood effort last year in Mississippi?
The present Virginia bill differs crucially from the Mississippi personhood initiative. There, any woman who used any form of birth control which prevented implantation, or who had had an abortion performed, could have been prosecuted for murder, or at least as an accessory to murder. The doctor could have been prosecuted as well. Theoretically, it would even have been possible to prosecute the doctor's staff members or suppliers. Fortunately, the Mississippi intiative failed to pass, for these and other reasons, by a fair margin.
In Virginia's case, however, we find the following curious language:
Nothing in [the wrongful death section] shall be interpreted as creating a cause of action against a woman for directly or indirectly harming her unborn child.O...K... Then what is the purpose of the bill, really? Is the Virginia law being extra careful to avoid the aforementioned negatives which helped defeat the Mississippi effort? This language would at first glance seem to be an affirmation of a woman's right to use the contraception of her choice, because she is specifically exempted from liability for any wrongful death action (for example, one brought by the father of the child on the grounds that he should have been informed prior to the abortion of their child).
N.B.: Keep in mind that the Mississippi bill had been brought before the people as a referendum vote, so in terms of advancement and final passage, the Virginia bill is relatively young. In Virginia, as in Mississippi, there are mechanisms that could allow for a similar popular vote approval process before implementation.
Let's explore this language a bit, and see if we can determine through inference what the actual implications might be. In this way, I hope to home in on the true purpose of this bill, the insidiousness of its implications and effects, and the blatant intimidation of doctors that will result.
Consider how interesting this disclaimer is: by carving out such an exception, this section would theoretically nullify the bill to the extent that a woman's use of contraception couldn't be held against her. That's good news, right? She retains relatively unfettered control over her personal health and/or family planning choices in terms of contraception, right?
If the state, for whatever reason, saw fit to subpoena her medical records, and found that she was pregnant on May 15th, but later was prescribed an abortifacient, then under this law a "person" would have been murdered. Who, then, would be the correct target for wrongful death damages suits under this law? Since the mother herself is exempted, the only possible targets would be the doctors or the corporations who manufacture and distribute contraceptives or abortifacients which in some way act on post-fertilized eggs.
More later... any comments or feedback would be greatly appreciated, but understand that they'll get deleted once I put this up as a final post.
No comments:
Post a Comment