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Can Scott Roeder Really Use The "Necessity Defense?"
New York, 11:42 AM
Sat Dec 19
73 posts in the last 24 hours
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Can Scott Roeder Really Use The "Necessity Defense?" |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
11/10/09
This defense will not be accepted, but I'm appalled that his lawyer can even consider it as an option. #scottroeder
11/10/09
11/10/09
In the end Roeder has to be held accountable for his actions. This isn't a war at all between the life of an unborn child and choice. The decision has already been made by a court and rather than respect the Supreme Court's decision he goes off and murder a doctor when he would have used a non-violent approach.
11/10/09
If they were really consistent, they'd be out there shooting women too.
Instead, they view women as agency-less vessels for their morality plays. A woman seeking an abortion must be saved--from herself!--by murdering the doctor who is willing to assist her.
Ah well, if they were logical, they wouldn't be evangelical Christians, now would they? #scottroeder
11/10/09
The tough one is: could you kill a terrorist about to set of a nuclear bomb in a city subway?
This is a perversion of the idea--you can't call it a necessity because you disagree with the Supreme Court's rulings. You can't kidnap a minor and have sex with her because you feel it necessary and the laws against sex with minors to be wrong. #scottroeder
11/10/09
Wait wait wait! Is he seriously referring to a womb as a location? That’s not a location sir; it’s an organic incubator inside another human being and the fetus is entirely dependant on it. I dunno about you Michael Hirsh but I personally feel that’s a pretty big difference. #scottroeder
11/10/09
Excuse me, but black people don't live inside other people's bodies. In case you hadn't noticed. #scottroeder
11/10/09
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11/10/09
How much does Roeder's frame of mind matter in this sort of thing? Yes, abortion is a legal medical procedure, but Roeder sincerely believes it is the murder of a child. In his mind, he really was acting in defense of countless others.
Now obviously I'm not saying this makes him a good guy, or anything other than nuts. But from a theoretical-legal perspective, is there any room to consider his viewpoint and beliefs? Does it mitigate his culpability, or sanity? I don't really think it should, I just don't know much about how the law regards deeply held batshit crazy beliefs. #scottroeder
11/10/09
11/10/09
Roeder might honestly believe he was stopping murder, but the law tells us he wasn't, so he can't argue it. (And all that's even beside the fact that even if you think abortion is murder, he didn't prevent an imminent abortion, he murdered a man at church. This defense will never stand for roughly a billion reasons.)
11/10/09
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11/10/09
The t-shirt has a point though. Many are so concerned with the "murder" of fetuses but seemingly unconcerned with all the people already on this planet who suffer and die in horrible ways every day. #scottroeder
11/10/09
If you find that shirt, let me know. I want to buy one. #scottroeder
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11/10/09
Also, I wish every one of these articles in the MSM that talk about late-term abortion would include a story about the type of women that seek this "choice" - generally they have no other medical option, and these fetuses are very much wanted. It's fucking heartbreaking to imply these families are murderers. fuck. #scottroeder
11/10/09
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11/10/09
From the flyer explaining the services offered at Dr. Hern's clinic:
"Specializing in late abortion for fetal disorders. Outpatient abortion over twenty-six menstrual weeks for selected patients with documented fetal anomaly, fetal demise, or medical indications."
So, not a capricious change of mind about the baby you're carrying, but rather a heartbreaking decision to end a wanted pregnancy and go home without the baby you have dreamed of, carried, and loved in your arms. Murder is gunning someone down in a church. #scottroeder
11/10/09
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11/10/09
According to the law, when is the "unlawful" death (i.e. when a pregnant woman is murdered) of a fetus possible? Are there any parameters around this? I assume there are no federal laws and this is decided on a state-by-state basis?
I know people have been charged with, and I assume convicted, of murdering a fetus. How do we differentiate between something like the Scott Peterson case and other cases when the fetus was in its earlier stages?
Is the line drawn when a fetus can survive outside of the womb? #scottroeder
11/10/09
Even still, murdering a fetus isn't normally a function of the gestational age, but of the act. A doctor performing an abortion wouldn't be charged with murdering a fetus anyway, but a person throwing a pregnant woman down a flight of stairs might (whether it's because she paid him to or not, like that Utah case). #scottroeder
11/10/09
Most such laws contain provisions that specifically exclude abortion, or "the actions of the woman in regard to her own fetus" (in other words, self abortion or self harm). Although some states have gone crazy and charged women with child abuse for not seeking medical care or consuming drugs or alcohol.
The laws are bad, as they elevate the health of the fetus above that of the pregnant woman. #scottroeder
11/10/09
What do folks here think of this? I know these laws are usually proposed by pro-life legislators, but they make a certain amount of sense. If I'm pregnant, and I want the baby, and someone beats the hell out of me for the purpose of ending the pregnancy, I have just been deprived of a wanted child. I would absolutely want them charged with murder. But I have to recognize the logical inconsistency implied by both assigning a fetus personhood for the purposes of murder charges while keeping abortion legal. I'm not really sure what the answer is, except that emotionally, killing a wanted fetus in utero seems much, much graver than aggravated assault. #scottroeder
11/10/09
I don't mean to sound unfeeling, but there's a camel's-nose-under-the-tent problem here, where the first law is introduced because a mugger might just kick a pregnant lady in the stomach a bunch of times because he hates babies and OMG HE SHOULD GO TO JAIL FOREVER and every single lawmaker agrees, and now it's on the books. But then more and more laws get introduced and it's not about these extreme violent acts, it's really about classifying the fetus as a human to make an end-run around legal abortion and to control pregnant women. Honestly, next stop is arresting pregnant women who have a glass of wine. I take a hard line against the laws, even though it looks mean-spirited at the far end, because the other end is just as important to me (more important, really, because it affects more women and is more plausible than the crazy-mugger scenario).
Just my thoughts. #scottroeder
11/10/09
But you're right, using it as an end-run around abortion rights is bad news. And we are getting close to the point where it's easy to imagine arresting women for anything that could potentially endanger a pregnancy.
I think someone said upthread that some states have laws that make harming a fetus (with exceptions for abortion and acts of self-harm) a crime. That might be the best way to split the difference. #scottroeder
11/10/09
11/11/09
[www.advocatesforpregnantwomen.org]
Instead of these "unborn victims" laws, people who kill pregnant women should just be charged with murdering a woman, because that is a pretty serious crime in and of itself. People who harm a fetus or cause a miscarriage could be charged with assault- which should be considered a serious crime anyway!
11/11/09
These laws are meant to give the government an "in" to control women, and that's exactly what they do. #scottroeder
11/11/09
However, it's not really a good tool for figuring out when "personhood" begins, because the age of viability has been shifting over time. Even 10 or 15 years ago, babies born at 32 weeks were unlikely to live. Now, babies born at 24 weeks, while they have tons of complications, can be expected to live. So, since changes in medicine have changed viability -- have they also changed the point at which "personhood" begins?
So there is no point at which a switch is flipped and voila, the fetus is independent now! I really wish people would leave this question out of it. Not you, Penny, but anti-choicers who think they have science on their side.
11/10/09
But then what will Jesus do when he comes back for the second coming? Dude's got some badass shit planned. Maybe we ought to just leave the final reckoning up to the big guy, after all. #scottroeder
11/10/09
11/10/09
I know we all know this, but I wanted to say it explicitly. #scottroeder