is it Murder?

[Sparky]

if you bash somebody while pregnate and she lose the Child?
EDIT: and you knew she was pregnate.

Seriously. I know somebody that this happend to while in Jail, (people who know me well will know who i am talking about..... anyway, ATM this is a real touchy subject with me and I think it is. I think that if you attack somebody that is pregnate and they lose the child even though it is unborn its still murder and they should get sent to jail (or a longer term) But no, every case i have heard like this they have just been charged for assult and thats it, Unborn or not it was still a living being. I think it should be the same amount of Time as what it would be if you was to kill somebody of any "legal living" age. What is your views? Murder or not?

 

[FromTheSouth]

I know that in some places in America, if you kill a pregnant woman, you get charged with double murder. There is a famous case here of a man named Scott Peterson who killed his pregnant wife and dumped her San Francisco Bay. She washed up onshore, and he was convicted of two murders and given life in prison.

A lot of it depends on whether the official belief is whether life begins at conception or once the fetus could sustain without the umbilical cord. I am of the conception school.

 

[HBK-aholic]

You've really stumped me here, Sparky. This is such a tough one to call. I'm of the belief life begins when the feotus is viable, that is, it could survive outside the womb. However, I don't know if you can really use that here, as if a woman was beaten up at 20 weeks, it may not classify as murder, but a few weeks later it would. That fails to make any sense whatsoever.

Depending on where you live, a woman can make the choice to end the pregnancy herself up until a certain time in the pregnancy. Can you call someone else ending it murder, while the woman still has the option to end it herself? I'm in no way saying being attacked and having an abortion are the same thing, but it could be looked at that way, and probably used by the attackers defence in trying to get them a lesser sentence.

I'm going to have to think about this one a little more at the moment.

 

[Marquis]

This is a tough one for me to answer but i will try my best. I would think if the victim is deep into her pregnancy it should be considered murder. But if the victim became pregnant rather recently i think he/she should still be charged for murder but given a lesser sentence time compared to a normal murder. Problem is i don't think it would make a difference to the couple who lost the baby whether the pregnancy was in its early stages or late stages. They would probably want to charge he/she for murder with the intention of them going to prison for life. It would be hard to argue with them if their right or wrong. I say murder.

 

[Tim]

Well like has been said, it really depends on how pregnant the woman was, if you want to go down that path. But I believe that it is murder, especially if you knew the person was pregnant. And why would you even bash a pregnant woman anyway? It's just not right. And while you know that she has someone living inside her, and that you are probably killing that person. How could somebody do that, denying someone the right to life before they even have a chance to breather fresh air, before they even get to see the world? How could anyone live with it? And I beleve that no matter how pregnant the woman is, you should still get the same jail sentence. It doesn't matter, you still know that you're causing an innocent person harm, and there is no excuse for that.

 

[Dragonslayer]

Well I'm from Europe, so we have a different type of legal system hereabouts (I'm studying law btw), so I can only supply our point of view (or at least as far as I still recall it off the top of my head):

I think you can basically start your considerations about "murder" at that point in time where an abortion would be unlawful anymore. Of course it is not really that easy, as there are many diverse presumptions about when a new "life" begins (ranging from everything to conception to after the actual birthing process), but I'd personally feel inclined to use this point in time where an abortion would be illegal. For if an abortion, which is desired/"committed" (though technically it is the surgeon who performs it but you know what I mean) by the mother of the child herself is already unlawful, all the more the killing of a foetus by a third person / an attacker must be unlawful.

However, I feel you will get a problem with the murder charge in the department of intent. In our legal system, you at least need dolus eventualis (eventual intent), which basically says that you consider a certain result of an action possible (in this case the death of the foetus), but you accept the possbility of this consequence and act nonetheless. Now when somebody attacks a pregnant woman, it will not always be that clear whether his intent will cover the possibility of her losing the child in the moment the act is committed... so you will probably end up with manslaughter instead of murder with respect to the child (and possibly also with respect to the woman, if the attacker did not have the intent to kill her). It will really be a matter of proof and in how far you can make a jury believe that the attacker not only intended to kill the woman (or at least had the "dolus eventualis" concerning the possibility of her dying), but also intended to kill the child (or had the dolus eventualis in that respect as well).

But in any case, you have to punish an induced miscarriage due to violence or attacks in some form or fashion anyway... but it seems kind of challenging indeed if it happens at a very early stage of the pregnancy. Not an easy question to answer, especially not as to what charge you can use. For if you do not use murder, what else is there?! So I think, one way or the other, you will have to try and charge them for murder of the child, and it will most likely be in the discretion of the court (which is the case in the anglo-american case law system anyway, but which is different from our contintental European system) as to whether they will regard it as murder or not... This will very much depend on the individual judges/jurymembers and their views, more so than in cases where you can rely more on written law (in European systems) or precedents (in English/American systems)...

 

[Shocky]

I think that this is different then abortion for the fac tthat the mother in this situation has chosen to keep the child and expects to take it the entire term. They are the vesself or that life to be growing inside, and they have chosen so. So if someone comes along and knowingly beats a pregnant woman, and causes the death of said child, then yes, that person is a murderer, plain and simple.

You have to look at intent. The soon to be mother was wanting this child to be born, and in all likely hood barring miscarriage, it would have happened. Therefore, that person is taking a life, plain and simple.

And yes, here stateside, you can, and probably will, be charged with double murder.

 

[RVDgurl]

The answer is simply: it depends on where you are. In the US, every state has their own version of the law. In many states it is considered murder in the 2nd degree or some version of manslaughter if the attack on the pregnant woman is intentional.

If you are asking my opinion, then yes, it should be murder. If anyone is going to intentionally cause harm to a pregnant woman then anything that happens to the baby is on their hands.