A Texas man appealed his conviction for killing his pregnant girlfriend and the fetus she carried. He asserted violation of his substantive due process rights, inter alia, on the grounds that the fetus was not viable (and therefore its killing was not murder, he argued). The Court of Criminal Appeals rejected that argument, reasoning that substantive due process in the abortion context goes to “the decision to have an abortion” in those contexts where one “presupposes that the mother wants to have an abortion.” Thus, the court found no conflict between a woman’s right to have an abortion and the man’s conviction for murder of the fetus.
The possible encroachment by fetal protection laws on reproductive rights is one that feminist law professors, including my colleague Linda Fentiman, and others have been watching carefully.
The full opinion of the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas is here.
-Bridget Crawford
Abortional homicide has been a crime for ages as, for example, in New York. While there are many serious state-created obstacles interfering with a woman’s right to elect an abortion I can’t take seriously as a threat to reproductive rights the additional offense for which this man was convicted. He murdered his girlfriend! I bet she didn’t consent to that.
I’m with Ralph, although I’d be persuaded by evidence to the contrary. Philosophically, these seem to be two completely different issues, but perhaps empirically fetal-murder laws acts as a camel’s nose; I just don’t know of any time that it has happened.