Wendy takes on...

...the blopic of the day and wins! (or just muses)

Monday, April 21, 2003

 
...the Scott Peterson case

So, a California man named Scott Peterson has been charged with the murder of his wife and his unborn son.

My blog does not concern itself with this man's arrest or with his wife's murder, but with some general misunderstandings and misapplied logic that I'm reminded of in reading it. I'd like to help clear them up.

1. People are not innocent until proven guilty. The State must presume them to be innocent until proven guilty, assure them the right to a fair and speedy trial, and throw them in prison if (and only if) a jury of their peers convicts them of a criminal offense deemed worthy of incarceration.

"You have a district attorney calling this a slam-dunk before there's even an arraignment," Scott Peterson's mother, Jackie, told the magazine. "I'm feeling like I'm living in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union."

Ms. Peterson, if this were Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, there would be no arraignment, there would be no district attorney, there would be no judge, there would be no jury and your words wouldn't be permitted in print. The district attorney is just letting the FREE PRESS know that he has more solid evidence than he needs to do his job, which is to PROVE your son guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. Your job, if you're really worried about your son getting a fair trial, is to make sure his defense attorney prepares his case well and is careful during jury selection. I might add that I hope you were extremely careful when voting for judges in your neck of the woods, that way you can rest assured knowing that you've done what you could in that regard. I am also sorry that your family (or any family) ever has to experience anything like this.

2. Abortion-rights groups aren't very thorough when it comes to legal research and advocacy.

California law permits a murder charge for a fetus if a pregnant woman is slain, even if the fetus is not viable, said Hallye Jordan, spokeswoman for the state attorney general. The law has been on the books for about 30 years.

What is this law doing on the books? Is terminating a pregnancy legally defined as murder or not?

3. Abortion-rights groups aren't all PRO CHOICE.

Abortion-rights groups are PRO safe and legal abortion.

I am pro choice. I don't believe that the state has a compelling interest to intervene in ANYONE's healthcare decisions -- whatever the medical procedure in question is. I don't believe that people who are convinced (quite justifiably I have to say) that the intentional destruction of a viable fetus is MURDER should be ROBBED by the federal government of their CHOICE to pay for abortion or not. Is it really hard for other abortion-rights activists to see it this way? If you ask for federal dollars to pay for ANY abortion services, you are asking that individuals be FORCED to participate in murder. Go to prison for not paying your taxes, or become an accomplice to an act that your deepest convictions tell you is EVIL. Is it any wonder that when you combine the fight for a woman's right to choose* with the demand for federal funding of organizations that provide abortions, you are met with such violent opposition?

*Here, the word "choose" refers ONLY to decisions regarding a very small number of medical procedures and ONLY to women. This should not be in any way interpreted as the right of ALL INDIVIDUALS to CHOOSE on ALL medical procedures, let alone ALL other aspects of life.
Wendy 3:02 PM