Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Does it make a difference?

 I was listening to the news this morning as I usually do, it runs in the background. I had heard about a man here in Maryland charged in the death of his wife and children. Without going into the whole case He is saying that his wife strangled his kids, he saw that she had done that and killed her. Oh, and the wife was pregnant. Unfortunately what really caught my attention was the charges being brought against him. He is being charged with three counts of murder and one count of " unlawful termination of a pregnancy. " My reaction is, what? Think about that for just a moment, unlawful termination of a pregnancy. This man is accused of killing his pregnant wife and two daughters. The charge is murder in the first degree for three people and one charge of unlawful termination of a pregnancy? How is that not, murder? Had he just terminated her pregnancy that wouldn't be considered murder? Well, I guess there is no way to commit " legal " murder so you have it call it something else: terminating a pregnancy. Maybe it is just me but I fail to see the distinction between the two.
 I did go on Google for a quick search of the law in Maryland. I didn't find much. The majority of the searches concerning " unlawful termination "  were concerned with people getting fired from their jobs. Plenty of information and advertising for lawyers dealing with that situation. Now I admit to not doing a very extensive search. I'm sure if I spent enough time I could find that piece of legislation that defines it in such a way. I did type in the whole question, unlawful termination of a pregnancy and the results came back pretty much the same. I have to say I'm shocked by all of that. I fully expected that to be an additional charge of murder. If you kill a pregnant woman isn't that double homicide? Apparently not in Maryland it isn't. I did find where the issue hinges on whether it is a " viable fetus " and whether the person intended to harm the fetus or not. Just killing the mother isn't sufficient evidence that you wanted to harm the fetus! Think about that. A consensus of our legislators reached that conclusion. Yes, the vote was in favor of that. Sure you killed the mother, but that doesn't mean you intended to kill the baby. In fact, it was just an " unlawful termination. " People, we are in trouble in this country when this stuff goes unnoticed.
 Now no matter how you feel about abortion, the legal termination of a pregnancy, when you kill the mother, you kill the child! I don't care if that was your intent or not! I also don't care if you " knew " she was pregnant or not! You're not supposed to kill anybody! I do find it disturbing that the law has to define the killing of an unborn child as an unlawful termination of a pregnancy. We can't call it what it is: murder? No, we can't because then we would have trouble justifying abortion as a " choice. " And that is the bottom line in all of this. We are saying its' alright to terminate a pregnancy as long as we decide to do so, murder is a viable option. Well that's because we can also decide when a fetus is " viable. " I'm no doctor, no medical expert, but I know this much, you can't be a little pregnant! Either you are, or you're not. I also know that being pregnant means you are going to have a baby. That's the expected outcome. I would say it is a viable outcome. Also the reason we have " abortions. " The intent is to prevent that outcome. It's a lawful termination.
 Here is what I did find regarding Maryland's law. Read it over for yourself. If you don't agree that it is all a bunch of double talking nonsense you haven't really read it. Yeah it may justify some things in some peoples minds but not in mine. I really don't care about viability and all of that. That child, as yet unborn and now will never be, had the right to life. It was taken away and in my book that is murder! Does it make a difference? Yes it does. If we can't be honest, admit to facts, and for lack of a better analogy, call a spade a spade we are lost. He murdered that child. And that's the bottom line.

Here is what I found. Md. Criminal Law Code Ann. § 2-103 establishes that a prosecution may be instituted for murder or manslaughter of a viable fetus as defined in Md. Health-General Code Ann. § 20-209. A person prosecuted for murder or manslaughter must have intended to cause the death of the viable fetus; intended to cause serious physical injury to the viable fetus; or wantonly or recklessly disregarded the likelihood that the person’s actions would cause the death of or serious physical injury to the viable fetus. (2005 Md. Laws, Chap. 546)

Just listened to the news a bit closer. This happened in Colorado. My bad but I get upset about this sort of thing. Doesn't matter to me where it happened though, my feelings about the whole thing are unchanged. 

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