So I’m surfing the web (Fark.com, specifically), and what headline do I see but this:
The South Dakota GOP is attempting to legalize the murder of abortion providers
Now, Fark is known for being pretty snarky. So it was with some skepticism that I opened up the link to the actual news item, which was titled:
South Dakota GOP pushes bill to legalize ‘homicide’ in defense of the unborn
That’s a bit vague. But the article jumps right to the meat of the matter with this:
a group of Republican state legislators have crafted a bill that would expand the legal definition of “justifiable homicide” in a way that’s plain and unambiguous: they’re trying to legalize the murder of abortion doctors.
And that article links back to a “Mother Jones” article with a less ambiguous title:
South Dakota Moves To Legalize Killing Abortion Providers
On the one hand, I’m all kinds skeptical. On the other hand, leave it to the Republicans to shoot themselves in the foot with dumbassery. And on the gripping hand, there’s the actual text of the law in question:
“Homicide is justifiable if committed by any person while resisting any attempt to murder such person, or to harm the unborn child of such person in a manner and to a degree likely to result in the death of the unborn child, or to commit any felony upon him or her, or upon or in any dwelling house in which such person is.”
What this translates to is: it is justifiable for you to kill someone who is in the process of trying to kill you… or if someone is trying to kill your unborn child. The “such person” legalese means that it’s legal for the person being attacked to kill in self defense.
What surprises me is that this apparently wasn’t already the law. Who in their right might would convict of murder a woman who fights back and kills someone who is, say, violently clubbing her about her baby-bump? Pregnant women got the right same as anyone to live and try to kill people.
But the thing to pay attention to is the commenting on the Fark thread. At last count there were 402 comments, which from a quick skim through, the vast majority hold this law to be a “legal to kill abortion providers” law. There are a few who point out that that’s not what it is, and that it cannot be used to justify that position. But the thought is now firmly embedded, and comes with the expected sort of responses:
The people that proposed that law should be banned from ever representing a group ever again.
Republicans want live babies, so they can grow up and become dead soldiers.
This is so patently absurd that it should just be noted as business as usual for Republicans, the GOP, or whatever the fark those cowards call themselves. When they’re ready to come back to the real world, we might be able to have a conversation. Until then, when they’re done advocating murder to prevent abortions, they can be treated with contempt.
And so on.
7 Responses to “Rilin’ ’em Up”
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It will be illuminating to see how this plays out through Yahoo news and Facebook.
On a third reading I wonder :
Can a father kill a doctor when a mother wants an abortion ?
It probably needs some motherhood language in there.
-Gar.
oops, here is another version quoted. now we really have a question of news agency bias and ‘coming to the aid’ of someone else.
Homicide is justifiable if committed by any person in the lawful defense of such person, or of his or her husband, wife, parent, child, master, mistress, or servant, or the unborn child of any such enumerated person, if there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design to commit a felony, or to do some great personal injury, and imminent danger of such design being accomplished.
All sides suck when lawyers are involved.
-G.
It seems to suggest that a parent could shoot a doctor trying to abort their daughter’s fetus, or a husband someone trying to abort his wife’s fetus.
The really odd part is where people can apparently kill abortion doctors trying to abort the fetus of a household servant:
http://legis.state.sd.us/sessions/2011/Bill.aspx?File=HB1171HJU.htm
“Section 2. That § 22-16-35 be amended to read as follows:
22-16-35. Homicide is justifiable if committed by any person in the lawful defense of such person, or of his or her husband, wife, parent, child, master, mistress, or servant, or the unborn child of any such enumerated person, if there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design to commit a felony, or to do some great personal injury, and imminent danger of such design being accomplished.”
That almost sounds like something out of the slavery laws of the old south… but this is out of South Dakota after all.
> Homicide is justifiable if committed by any person in the lawful defense of such person … a design to commit a felony
The terminology seems to indicate that it is legal to kill when that killing is in the lawful defense agaisnt someone about to commit a felony. Since abortion, even in South Dakota, is *not* a felony, then killing an abortion doctor would not be a lawful act. Unless, I suppose, that abortion doctor is sneaking into unwitting pregnant womens rooms at night and giving them sekrit aborshuns.
Yeah, but that’s the thing though; although, as you mentioned, killing someone in self defense is perfectly acceptable and no doubt has been in South Dakota law for over 100 years, this proposed law is written in such a way as to start to introduce abortion into the original law in a stealth form, with the tactic that it’s step one in banning abortion, in the same way that legalizing growing hemp is step one on legalizing the growth of marijuana.
The way I read the law, it’s another way to justify killing someone attacking a woman. If she’s pregnant, and the attack might result in the death of the fetus of not her, she can kill the guy. I have no problem with that.