Last week the House passed and the Senate is poised to take up a landmark bill protecting unborn victims of violence. Limits on access to abortion for minors. Sponsors of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act framed their bill as a crime-fighting measure. They say it fills a gap in federal law that fails to recognize that violence against a pregnant woman affects both the woman and her unborn child - and the assaulter needs to answer for crimes against both. Some 24 states have enacted similar laws in the past decade.
Opponents say it's a thinly veiled assault on the basic principles of reproductive rights for women.
It is also setting up a battle for the future between the rights of women and the rights of the unborn in abortion cases, they say. I could be part of a generation that both won and lost the right to choose. Anti-abortion groups were big players behind the scenes in the House debate on the bill concerning unborn victims of violence. The cases they cited focused on assaults on women who were close to the end of their pregnancies. The National Right to Life Committee circulated a photo of a Wisconsin woman holding her son, Zachariah, at his funeral.