Hoist With Their Own Petard?
So apparently the Republicans are planning to force a vote in either the House
or the Senate (I didn't catch which) on imposing criminal penalties for harming
a fetus in commission of a crime. This is usually seen as a back door
strategy for recognizing the personhood of a fetus, and thus undermining
American women's reproductive freedoms.
I have an idea for a counter strategy. These arguments are overwhelming used by
"conservative Christians" yes? Well, the Bible actually addresses this
situation quite unambiguously. Here's what it says in the New English Bible:
When, in the course of a brawl, a man knocks against a pregnant
woman so that she has a miscarriage but suffers no further hurt, then the
offender must pay whatever fine the woman's husband demands after assessment.
-- Exodus 21:22
Now I'm not exactly up on the law, but isn't this analogous to a civil penalty?
(If not, please correct me. I'm really quite fuzzy on this stuff.) Overlooking
the delegation of authority to the father, does it not also, in essence, say
that the fetus is worth whatever the woman and her family feel that it's worth?
What if pro-choice legislators introduced a
competing bill with the above biblical quote (changing "woman's husband" to
"woman", of course)? The way I see it, it would turn the conservatives' strategy back on
them by forcing them to either vote for a measure which would establish that a
fetus's worth is determined by the woman carrying it, or vote against a measure
which is an almost direct biblical quote.
Obviously this strategy might well raise church/state separation alarms,
and might have other concequences that I haven't considered, but I thought I
should throw it out there and see what people thought.
Reactions?
7:51:09 AM 
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