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Stem cell research and abortion effectively outlawed in the Senate today
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| DaveSZ |
It passed with the help of 13 spineless Dems, and Bush will sign it.
It's funny, the Pentagon is now outsourcing stem cell research to Scandinavia because they can't legally do the research here.
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U.S. Senate Takes Up 'Unborn Victims' Bill
Thu Mar 25, 2004 04:52 PM ET
By Joanne Kenen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate, after an emotional debate, was set on Thursday to pass legislation that would make it a federal crime to harm or kill an "unborn child," an issue tied to the debate over abortion rights.
Displaying photos of fetuses and graphically describing such attacks, backers said the bill would discourage assaults on women and recognize the loss and grief when a wanted pregnancy was violently ended by a criminal act.
The measure has cleared the U.S. House of Representatives and President Bush has promised to sign it into law.
The anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee strongly backs the legislation. But the American Civil Liberties Union has called it a "thinly veiled attempt to create fetal rights and further erode women's reproductive rights."
Opponents said the bill could undermine or at least complicate abortion rights or block stem cell research by treating the fetus as a person from conception. Sponsors say they drafted the legislation to explicitly exclude abortion.
But an alternative championed by California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein that would punish violence against pregnant women without treating "unborn child" as a person failed on a 50-49 vote.
PETERSON CASE
The bill has been nicknamed "Laci and Conner's Law" after Laci Peterson, a California woman who was weeks from giving birth when she was murdered in December 2002. Her unborn son was to have been named Conner. Under state law, her husband Scott Peterson faces double murder charges.
Laci Peterson's relatives and other families who have been victims of similar crimes have lobbied for the federal legislation, adding to the emotion surrounding it.
"There were two people who washed up on the beach. One was Laci. The other was her son Conner," Peterson's mother, Sharon Rocha, told reporters on Capitol Hill this week.
"It's simple justice," said Ohio Republican Sen. Mike DeWine, a lead sponsor of the "Unborn Victims of Violence Act."
"Abortion is not covered at all," said South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, another leading backer of the bill. "We're talking about criminal activity of a third party and I don't know why you would want to give a criminal any more breaks than you had to if they go around beating on pregnant women."
The legislation would apply to any assault or murder covered by 68 federal offenses or the code of military justice, such as assault on federal property. At least 29 states already have similar laws, although some cover only portions of pregnancy.
Abortion rights groups rallied around Feinstein's alternative, which mandates stronger penalties for an attack that damages or destroys a pregnancy but does not define life as beginning at conception or treat a fetus as a person.
"This issue is not as simple as it seems at first glance," Feinstein said. "Clearly there is a concerted effort to codify in law the legal recognition that life begins at conception."
DeWine's bill applies to an "unborn child" at "any stage of development, who is carried in the womb." The assailant does not have to know that the woman was pregnant.
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| St_Andrew |
cool, our government just approved a law today making it easier to do stem cell research :)
scandinavia is the best :tongue3 |
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| tathi |
| science is no match for fundies =/ |
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| DaveSZ |
Most had expected the Senate to kill the bill as it has the past two times with the pro choice majority, but who knows what the hell happened.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...-2004Mar25.html
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Senate Votes to Make Harming a Fetus a Crime
By Jim Abrams
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, March 25, 2004; 8:16 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate voted Thursday to make it a separate crime to harm a fetus during commission of a violent federal crime, a victory for those seeking to expand the legal rights of the unborn.
The 61-38 vote on the Unborn Victims of Violence Act sends the legislation, after a five-year battle in Congress, to President Bush for his signature. The White House said in a statement that it "strongly supports protection for unborn children." The House passed the bill last month.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said the bill was "powerful because this act is about simple humanity, about simple reality."
But abortion rights lawmakers contended that giving a fetus, from the point of conception, the same legal rights as its mother sets a precedent that could be used in future legal challenges to abortion rights.
It was the second big win for social conservatives, who last year pushed through protections for the unborn with enactment of the so-called partial birth abortion ban. That ban is now tied up in the courts.
The Senate cleared the way for passage with a 50-49 vote to defeat an amendment, backed by opponents of the bill, that would have increased penalties for harm to a pregnant woman but did not attempt to define when human life begins.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., President Bush's opponent this fall, interrupted his campaign schedule to vote yes on the amendment. He voted no on final passage.
The bill states that an assailant who attacks a pregnant woman while committing a violent federal crime can be prosecuted for separate offenses against both the woman and her unborn child. The legislation defines an "unborn child" as a child in utero, which it says "means a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb."
"This bill recognizes that there are two victims," said Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, a chief sponsor. Americans, he said, "intuitively know that there is a victim besides the mother."
The key obstacle was an amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that would have imposed the same tougher penalties for attacks on pregnant women as outlined in the DeWine bill but made no attempt to define the beginning of life.
Feinstein said that by defining when life begins, the bill was "the first step in removing a woman's right to choice, particularly in the early months of a pregnancy before viability." She said it could also chill embryonic stem cell research.
The Senate also defeated an amendment by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., that would require employers to give unpaid leave, and states to pay unemployment benefits, to women when they or family members are victims of domestic or sexual violence.
Supporters of the bill have named it after Laci Peterson and her unborn child, Conner, victims in the highly publicized murder case in California. California, one of 29 states with an unborn victims law, is trying Peterson's husband, Scott, on double murder charges.
Laci Peterson's stepfather, Ron Grantski, said at a Capitol Hill news conference that he and Laci's mother had received several hundred thousand sympathy cards and "they all mourned our loss of Laci and Conner -- not Laci and the fetus."
The Senate bill covers 68 federal crimes of violence, such as drug-related shootings, violence at an international airport, terrorist attacks, crimes on a military base and threats against a witness in a federal proceeding.
It would specifically exclude prosecution of legally performed abortions -- a fact supporters cite in arguing that the bill would not undermine the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision affirming a woman's right to end a pregnancy.
"The criminals who commit these crimes are not committing abortions," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee. "They are depriving these unborn children of the right to life. It's a separate issue related to the right to life."
Groups on both sides of the abortion issue lobbied hard on the legislation.
The Christian Coalition of America said votes for either the Murray or Feinstein amendments would be regarded as negative votes on its annual congressional scorecard of lawmakers.
On the other side, NARAL Pro-Choice America delivered more than 130,000 petitions to senators urging defeat of the bill.
"This would be the first time in federal law that an embryo or fetus is recognized as a separate and distinct person under the law, separate from the woman," said NARAL president Kate Michelman. "Much of this is preparing for the day the Supreme Court has a majority that will overrule Roe v. Wade."
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Actually I know what happened.
It's an election year, so many Senators lost their spines. |
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| trancaholic |
| quote: | Originally posted by DaveSZ
It's funny, the Pentagon is now outsourcing stem cell research to Scandinavia because they can't legally do the research here. |
Yet again a third world country is held back due to its religious fanatics. Thank god us vikings never really converted to christianity ;) |
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| DaveSZ |
| quote: | Originally posted by trancaholic
third world country |
Elucidate.
Are you talking about healthcare? I agree. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by DaveSZ
Elucidate.
Are you talking about healthcare? I agree. |
Most of the world's pre-eminent leaders in medical technology/drug manufacturers are American firms. This bill's challenge to America's technological lead is a valid issue, but one cannot deny that American big pharma, with a few european large firms, are the world's sole provider of healthcare ... Glaxo Wellcome-SmithKline Beecham (a UK firm) is the world's largest).
Edit: oops I think the largest is pfizer with its recent acquisition of pharamcia (my old client). |
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| PHALPAX |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Edit: oops I think the largest is pfizer with its recent acquisition of pharamcia (my old client). |
It is Pfizer |
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| Yoepus |
| quote: | Originally posted by PHALPAX
It is Pfizer |
damn right!
Still hasn't been doing much for my stock though.. I knew I should of got out when it hit 38 again.. but the dividends were just so nice:whip: |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Yoepus
damn right!
Still hasn't been doing much for my stock though.. I knew I should of got out when it hit 38 again.. but the dividends were just so nice:whip: |
My current client just had a major drug approved by the FDA. If I were allowed to purchase stock, I would have earned a 100% return on investment .... so disappointing :( |
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| trancaholic |
| quote: | Originally posted by DaveSZ
Elucidate.
Are you talking about healthcare? I agree. |
It was an attempt at a bitter sweet joke. Don't take it too serious. However, I do find your healtcare system flawed - and agree with you on this point.
Furthermore, the number of people living in poverty, the people lacking a basic education, your rigid version of democracy, and the barbarianism exhibited by your current government, all make me hesitant to acknowledge the US as the pinnacle of civilization - even if most Americans are very friendly and open people. |
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| DaveSZ |
| quote: | Originally posted by trancaholic
It was an attempt at a bitter sweet joke. Don't take it too serious. However, I do find your healtcare system flawed - and agree with you on this point.
Furthermore, the number of people living in poverty, the people lacking a basic education, your rigid version of democracy, and the barbarianism exhibited by your current government, all make me hesitant to acknowledge the US as the pinnacle of civilization - even if most Americans are very friendly and open people. |
Ahaha I agree.
Those currently in power know that when you keep the electorate stupid, they are more easily manipulated. I believe there is a Karl Rove quote somewhere similar to that effect.
The Democrats aren't much better, but at least they give money for education. :/ |
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