THE JUSTICE FOR ALL COALITION

North Carolina law makers have introduced the Unborn victims of violence bill for the past five sessions only to see it languish in committee. Modeled after the federal bill known as the Laci and Conner Peterson Act, House Bill 263 says that a person who commits the crime of murder or manslaughter of a pregnant woman is guilty of a separate offense for the resulting death of the unborn child. The bill’s three other primary sponsors and its 46 co-signers as well as many other legislators have indicated their support. The bill simply makes sense. A national poll shows that when asked the question “If a criminal assaults a woman who carries an unborn child, does that crime have two victims or only one? 80 percent of respondents say “two.”
The federal government and 36 states have laws to prosecute the unlawful killing of an unborn child, laws that have been upheld by numerous federal and state courts. And yet, in North Carolina, the issue hasn’t even been debated on the house floor, thanks in part to two powerful groups, the pro-abortion lobby and domestic violence advocates, and a committee chair who has not allowed the issue to be heard.
The fetal homicide bill does not conflict with the Roe ruling. Lets quit looking for any excuse not to pass this law. This is not about abortion. They want women to have a choice-well these women who were murdered had a choice and chose to have their babies. Then that choice was taken away.
Rep. Deborah Ross, who chairs the Committee on Judiciary I, where the bill remains says: “She refused to hear the study bill that would have opened the door for those types of discussion. As for the senate side, Sen. Andrew Brock (R-Davie) introduced SB 295, a very similar measure which also wound up in the senate Judiciary I committee, chaired by Sen. Martin Nesbitt (D-Buncombe).
The only thing that will get the bills out of the committee and to the floor will be a word from senate and house leadership to the respective committee chairs.
Calls and letters to Senate Pro Tempore Marc Basnight and house speaker Joe Hackney, especially from bill supporters in every district, might bring needed pressure to move the bill along.
Although the bill’s primary sponsors are Republicans, The Unborn Victims of Violence Act is not a partisan issue. People say they are lifelong democrats, pro-choice, liberal democrats who supports the bill.
People get reduced sentences too often and a fetal homicide bill would help prevent that. “Many of us feel that if you also could be convicted or tried for the death of the fetus, that you would probably get a guarantee that these people would serve some serious time.”
The current laws North Carolina now has in place do not even come close to being strong enough. The current law states that any person, who in the commission of a felony, causes injury to a woman, knowing the woman to be pregnant, in which injury results in the miscarriage or stillbirth by the woman is guilty of a felony that is one class higher than the felony committed.
We were very successful when we organized the “Coalition for Jessica’s law.” After two years of delay, Jessica’s law was finally signed by the Governor . We have now organized the “Justice for All coalition” with the hopes of getting this bill signed into law after so many years of delay. It’s passed time that we pay tribute to the young women where the Judicial system has failed them such as, Michelle Young, 29, who was four months pregnant with her second child. Young’s sister found her beaten to death on the bedroom floor. She was lying in a pool of blood with her 2-year-old daughter who was unharmed, by her side. Janet Abaroa was found stabbed to death in her Durham home in April of 2005. Jennifer Neilson was pregnant with her third child, she was murdered in Raleigh at 8 months pregnant. Maria Lauterback’s unborn child had been buried with her, in the fire pit where the killer tried to destroy the evidence by setting both bodies ablaze. Megan Lynn Touma, another military woman. The Fort Bragg soldier, seven months pregnant was found dead in June. Contribution’s to our not-for profit organization can be sent to:
“The Justice For All Coalition”
c/o Jeff Gerber
5816 Concord Hwy.
Monroe,NC 28110

Jeff Gerber
Monroe,NC
704

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