In the last couple of days we have been horrified to hear the story of Bobbi Jo Stinnett, the Missouri woman who was murdered and had her unborn child cut from her body. The story is truly chilling and I will not go into the details here.
In the news coverage of the story we find a very disturbing trend - referring to this baby as a stolen fetus, rather than a kidnapped child. I would have thought that after the grizzly murder of Lacy and Conner Peterson we would have learned that a woman who has been pregnant 8 months has a baby and not a fetus. When was the last time you asked a pregnant woman “when will your fetus be recognized as human?” No one would ask such a question! You would probably ask the mother-to-be “when is your baby due?”
This story from Fox News illustrates what I am talking about. The headline reads “Woman Charged in Stolen Fetus Case.” Lisa M. Montgomery, the alleged kidnapper/murder/scumbag, is not charged with stealing a fetus, she is charge with KIDNAPPING RESULTING IN DEATH. You kidnap people. The state of Missouri has enough sense to realize that we are not dealing with the theft of property but the abduction of a human being, why can’t the press see this? It is time that the media show some respect for unborn children.
The answer is because of the abortion issue - as a society we are terrified of this issue. If the press refers to unborn children, at any stage of pregnancy, as children, it will be seen as support for the anti-abortion lobby. To me, referring to an unborn child, who has been “stolen” from her mother’s womb, as a “fetus” is offensive in the extreme.
I don’t mean for this to be an abortion post, I just want to point out what I see as a problem with the way the press thinks of unborn children. Government certification, as in the form of a birth certificate, is not what makes a fetus into a child. Life does not begin at birth, if it did then Lisa M. Montgomery would be responsible, not only for the death of Bobbi Jo Stinnett (allegedly), but also for the initiation of the life of Victoria Jo Stinnett.
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7 comments:
Great Post. Yet another example of where the MSM is out of step with the rest of reality.
Great post. To be consistent with abortion laws, the baby/fetus was "stolen" not kiddnapped. Truely messed up.
Rob,
Good post, I especially like "Life does not begin at birth", I agree with you on this. Man your starting to scare me, starting to go all "Churchy" on me???
Keep it up...
Tim K
Logically, a late term fetus (e.g., the Petersen kid) is certainly viable outside the womb and deserves protection and recognition as a full human being as a result.
The unfortunate thing is that pro-choice folk are forced to resist acknowledging late-term fetuses as persons because pro-life people deliberately and blatantly wish to use such protections as a slippery slope argument leading to declaration of life beginning at conception.
Most pro-choice folk would happily accept limitations and outright bans on late-term abortions if they didn't feel like they were being hoodwinked into accepting a legal precedent that would then be used to ban abortion outright.
If pro-life people were more accommodating of choice in early pregnancy, they'd have little resistance against necessary protections of late term, viable unborn children. Instead, they prefer an all or nothing strategy that compromimses such protections of life and turns unfortunate cases such as this as political footballs.
"The unfortunate thing is that pro-choice folk are forced to resist acknowledging late-term fetuses as persons because pro-life people deliberately and blatantly wish to use such protections as a slippery slope argument leading to declaration of life beginning at conception."
Pro-Choice people refuse to allow protection to late-term fetuses as persons not because they don't recognize them as people but because to do so might be a slippery slope? Does this mean that there are a lot of pro-choice people willing to put up with murdering persons that they actually feel are worthy of protection? How heinous!
As an example of a pro-choice argument from an all-or-nothing point of view read:
Feldt, Gloria, The War on Choice: The Right-Wing Attack on Women's Rights and How to Fight Back (Bantam: 2004). Pro-Life people are not the only all-or-nothing fanatics. In fact, most are neither all-or-nothing nor fanatics.
It is really sad that a baby can not be called what it is because it might further someone elses political aggenda.
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