Much ado about not much
Today President Bush signed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, making it a separate offense to harm a fetus in the commission of a federal crime committed against a pregnant woman.
It's a perfect example of my ambivalence about the Republican Party. I'm a registered Republican and vote that way most of the time but not always. But it's hard for me to feel more partisan kinship. There are few reasons to believe this law will make a difference in practice because there are relatively few federal crimes that involve pregnant women. You'd never know it from listening to its proponents however. No, it's a milestone achievement! This didn't stop Laci Peterson's parents from showing up (that is, being invited to appear), even though their daughter (and grandson in utero) was the victim of a state crime.
No, mostly this law is about laying the groundwork for future constitutional litigation over abortion. If a fetus is a person, protected by federal criminal law, then . . . well you finish the thought. Of course, the fetus was never considered a person for the purposes of a criminal prosecutions before abortion was medicinally available, but hey -- let's take a shot at it.
What bugs me most about GOP social policy initiatives is how close they are today to Democratic policies, in the sense that they so often promise to right some great injustice but in fact are simply a pretext for being able to go home to the faithful and say "See -- we got something done! Maybe it's just politics and both sides play that game. Whatever.
So all you pregnant women out there -- feel safer tonight. Even though the vast majority of crimes against pregnant women that also harm fetuses involve state laws that are unaffected, your Congress and President are at work for you!