Rep. Jeff Whitham, R-Garden City, holds up a stack of more than 2,000 signatures from Kansans who want Alexa's Law to be approved. The bill is named after Baby Alexa, an unborn child who died as the result of her mother's murder.
Topeka — A proposed "Alexa's Law" for protecting mothers-to-be and their fetuses won first-round approval Thursday in the House, despite questions from abortion rights supporters about whether it's needed.
The bill, advanced on a voice vote, would make it possible to charge someone with murder, manslaughter, vehicular homicide or battery for killing or harming a fetus. It says the definition of "person" for those specific crimes includes an "unborn child" at "any stage of gestation from fertilization to birth."
Although such proposals have been considered before, this year's measure was inspired by the murder of a 14-year-old Wichita girl and named for her near-term fetus whom the family had named Alexa.
Abortion rights supporters are suspicious because abortion opponents back the bill, and its passage is an important goal for Kansans for Life, the state's largest anti-abortion group. Also, abortion rights supporters noted, the state has laws enacted in 1995 making it a crime to harm a pregnant woman.
However, the bill's backers said they want the criminal law to recognize that when a pregnant woman or girl is harmed, two separate individuals have been attacked.
"The victim's family recognizes it," said Kathy Ostrowski, who lobbies for Kansans for Life. "The medical community understands it. The legal community understands it. It's two distinct DNAs."
Rejection of two alternatives crafted by abortion rights supporters suggested the bill has enough support to pass the House either today or Monday, and go to the Senate where it faces an uncertain future.
Similar legislation won House approval in 2002 and 2005, only to die in the Senate without a committee vote.
Thirty-five states have some law making it a crime to kill or harm a fetus, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, including Alabama, California, Illinois, Missouri and Ohio. However, laws vary from state-to-state, and not all apply from conception.
In Kansas, backers of the proposed "Alexa's Law" point out that the family of the teenage girl, Chelsea Ann Brooks, support it. The proposal has its own Web site.
Chelsea's body was found in a shallow grave in Butler County in June, and three suspects were accused of involvement in the strangling. One, a juvenile, pleaded guilty to a capital murder charge, while two adults await trial.
Rep. Steve Brunk, R-Bel Aire, showed off petitions signed by nearly 6,000 people in favor of the bill, generated by the Web site.
"It truly is people rising up across the state," Brunk told colleagues. "They're ready to call you, but for the moment, I've intercepted them."
The bill specifically exempts doctors performing abortion, but abortion rights activists still worry that it represents a first step toward banning the procedure. They found it telling that supporters named the measure after the fetus and not the girl.
"It's not about abortion? I beg to differ," said Rep. Annie Kuether, D-Topeka. "It about the unborn child. Nobody's talking about the 14-year-old girl."
Added Julie Burkhart, a lobbyist for the abortion rights group ProKanDo: "If we're interested in providing justice to victims, we need to start out by respecting the women who give life and it's unfortunate that in this bill, there is not focus on the violence that is done to women."
Abortion rights supporters twice proposed amendments to replace the proposed "Alexa's Laws" with proposals for increasing penalties for criminals who harm pregnant women. Both amendments failed, though they embodied an approach supported by Attorney General Paul Morrison, an abortion rights Democrat.
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Machiavelli_mania (anonymous) says…
Anthony Brown is going to vote yes to this bill,HB 2006, the Unborn Victims Violence Act. In doing so, he is willing to prosecute and criminalize any woman who has an abortion. This bill is totally against the Kansas Constitution, which provides for legal and medically-safe access to abortions.
This is the deeply dubious attempts by the Religious Rite to eliminate abortion in the state of Kansas.
All women, even those who have miscarriages, will be affected by this bill.
If this bill passes, this will be Anthony Brown's last term in office, for I will work like heck to see to it that he is not re-elected.
Machiavelli_mania (anonymous) says…
Read the bill for yourself:
http://www.kslegislature.org/bills/20...
SettingTheRecordStraight (anonymous) says…
This is a fantastic bill. I couldn't be more enthusiatic about it.
When you murder a pregnant woman, you a culpable for the death of her unborn child as well.
Machiavelli_mania (anonymous) says…
I amend my statement, for they say that abortions are exempt, IF you believe what they are saying and what is in this bill. Trying to be a little less hormonal on this very hormonal (!) issue.
But this bill really has little to do with the violence against women.
They are now trying to define a fetus as being from conception and on, and making obsolete the concepts of trophoblast, blastocyst, zygote, and embryo.
Good gods, what is next? gravity??
The Religious Rite needs to be forced into third party status
SettingTheRecordStraight (anonymous) says…
"The Religious Rite needs to be forced into third party status"
Not a healthy way to look at those with whom you disagree.
willie_wildcat (anonymous) says…
Machiavelli- I agree with you on your first comment. It is a veiled attempt to outlaw abortion hence limiting women in their reproductive choices and rights. These individuals who are so blind by their "faith" will stop at nothing until women are reduced to nothing more than breeding vessels for society. To me this is no more than another attempt to give a fetus the same status as a person. As a woman this is rather unerving to see this.
There is no need for this farce of a law. None whatsoever. However if men were the ones getting pregnant it would be a whole other story then. Oh and ignore STRS they are just trying to get your shackles up.
Machiavelli_mania (anonymous) says…
""The Religious Rite needs to be forced into third party status"
Not a healthy way to look at those with whom you disagree."
Heathful, dear.
And just how is it unhealthful?
The green party is a third party, and much funded by the GOP.
What is the difference between the two? I can't find one, outside of opinion.
When I talked to Brown, he pronounced that he was Pro-Life. So the statement made me think that the agenda is far more important to him than the wishes of his constituents.
It was also interesting that when I called him and they asked what business was I from, who was I with. I had one heck of a time getting a hold of him. I told him I was with my child, iTunes, and the dishes, that I was a soccer mom. Once getting that across, the call was cut off, and the secretary told me she is not the one who cut me off. Finally I get a hold of Brown, and I must admit, I was not well-behaved. I have a tough time communicating with anyone who thinks they can tell me what to do with my uterus, without taking the cancer risks for it, without paying my medical bills, without any financial assistance or concern for it's maintenance or upkeep. And now in this highly hormonal stage of my life, without some kind of relief provided from it's life's phases. (Give me valium, Please!)
Brown votes an agenda, and is not in office to represent the people in his district.
As I said, I will do what I can to see to it, in a political manner, he does not return to that office when attempting to access it again a year or so from now.
Hey settingtherecordstraight, do you have a uterus of your own? Or do you just make this decision without first-hand experience?
Machiavelli_mania (anonymous) says…
Willie, I agree. They are defining life as beginning at conception, the blastomeres when no one even knows they are pregnant, the zygote and blastocyst (oh so similar to cancer at this stage) at a time when a women still doesn't know they are pregnant, the embryo which soon makes it presence known, and much later the fetus.The Religious Rite reach for the emotional by calling all these stages "fetus, fetus, fetus". Geez, do ya think that maybe embryology should be taught in high school, along with gravity and evolution? (And I hope I have the stages in the right order, for learned it at one time and was tested on it).
90% of all abortions are done in the embryo stage at or before 3 months.
Don't even want think about men being pregnant!
(caps for emphasis only)
It is time to stop the resurging pressure to subjugate women. It is way too late in the progression of world-wide human rights to be successful with it and to appear as anything other than the dubiously intended supression of women.
Machiavelli_mania (anonymous) says…
I saw today an old clip of O'Rye-lee, appearing on Fox, talk about the Dixie Chicks. He said Natalie should be slapped around. Hmm! Is this the mentality the GOP really wants to champion? Because it is counter to what they say about themselves. Yet every once in a while, you get the real deal from them. They are obviously unconcerned about domestic violence.
Agnostick (anonymous) says…
I don't think the Religious Right extremists need to be "forced" into third-party status.
I think they'll take themselves there without any "help" whatsoever from more level-headed, moderate Centrists.
Agnostick
agnostick@excite.com
Agnostick (anonymous) says…
And this book will fly off the shelves, into the hands of the "(Read: BAbykillers)" because...?????????
Agnostick
agnostick@excite.com
Machiavelli_mania (anonymous) says…
Thanks for your opinion on my opinion, and your need for flaming that comes from somewhere outside the issue, and more from within you.
90% of abortions are done in the first three months of gestation so I will address only those points. And I intend to limit the discussion to only the 90% of abortions.
The heart of the embryo beats via innervation but does not circulate the blood. The mother circulates the blood of the gestating via the U Cord.
Why do you value physical functioning more than consciousness? I don't. I personally think consciousness is why we are all here, why people have needs for gods.
At what point in gestation does the soul appear and stay? Seems to me that if you are taking a religious rite stance, you would be overwhelmingly interested in the matters of soul. Are you? Why is it this issue never comes up in the abortion debate? Is it because it is untouchable, unable to be measured?
I have seen ultrasounds. Had them done. Valued the information from them as well. Been so delighted in their subject.
No,You are wrong on what irks me. (can you face being wrong?)
It irks me when some small-time Congressmen, less intelligent than myself (and I am no genius) takes the position that he can make decisions that effects my own body, and never effecting HIS, by trying to tell me what I can and cannot do with it, yet refused to provide the health care that maintains it and deals with the risks for having it, and the finances to utilize it, and that he is intending to restrict my pursuit of happiness.
We should be real about this. If the Religious Rite are wishing to chain a women to the actions of her uterus, restricting her freedoms because she has one, then they should certainly be willing to legislate free health care that deals with uterine and reproductive issues.
My opinion is that you leave my bodily choices alone and I will pay for the health care.
Too bad you cannot see this in the traditional GOP manner, as I do.
Machiavelli_mania (anonymous) says…
Logics,
I think that the Religious Rite is going to usher in the end of Christian faith in this country as we know it today.
I think their drive to push their doctrines and brainwash on others will lead to an evolution of American Christianity, by chasing Americans away from church attendence.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/2...
http://www.catholiceducation.org/arti...
The Atlantic Monthly | October 2002
The Next Christianity
We stand at a historical turning point, the author argues-one that is as epochal for the Christian world as the original Reformation. Around the globe Christianity is growing and mutating in ways that observers in the West tend not to see. Tumultuous conflicts within Christianity will leave a mark deeper than Islam's on the century ahead
by Philip Jenkins
.....
Machiavelli_mania (anonymous) says…
That you need to tell me I am ignorant is certainly very telling about your mindset. I am sorry that there is something inside of you that makes you want to insult in such a manner. I hope Jesus gets a little bit more aggressive with your learning.
And study up on your gestational anatomy and physiology.
Well-wishing sent your way, that you may continue to grow and mature.
crazyks (anonymous) says…
If the two circulatory systems are entirely separate, as you claim, Parkay, then exactly how do nutrients and oxygen get from mother to baby??
You're talking about a much later stage of development, and you do need to study more about gestation.