By Sen. Beth Edmonds,Special to the Sun Journal

text block: Two different bills vying for support in the Legislature seek to toughen the penalties for harming a pregnant woman, but they take dramatically different approaches and, according to some, have turned into a proxy fight over abortion and fetus rights.

Identifying the victim
Focus of domestic assault laws should be on protecting the victim, not on eroding abortion rights.

The recent conviction of Scott Peterson for the murder of his pregnant wife has brought some deserved attention to the issue of violence against pregnant women.

According to recent studies, between 8 and 15 percent of all pregnant women in the United States are battered by the men in their lives, with the highest rates of violence being experienced by pregnant adolescents.

Even more disturbing is that the leading cause of death for pregnant women is homicide.

Tragically, these crimes are not far removed from Maine. Last year, Maine had its own trial involving a husband that had brutally murdered his pregnant wife. This crime highlighted the need to address the batterer’s ability to establish through his words and actions his intent to cause physical and emotional injury to the woman and establish undeniably his power to control her.

We, as a society, are right to want to address this crime and protect women from such fate. Our response to this problem should be one that seeks to protect the pregnancy by protecting the pregnant woman.

Recognizing the unique nature of these crimes and the need to engage in a public discussion on the matter, I introduced “An Act to Protect Motherhood.”

The Motherhood Protection Act was developed with the input of various domestic violence experts and women’s groups. We worked together to ensure that the focus of the legal system was on the primary victim of the violence, the pregnant woman.

The Motherhood Protection Act identifies the unique circumstances of domestic violence faced by pregnant women and instructs judges to apply a special weight to homicides involving women who are pregnant. This legislation maintains the focus of the criminal prosecution on the intended victim of violence – the battered woman – and makes an important affirmative step toward providing safety to her.

The battering relationship is based on the abuse carried out by one party against another. The struggle for power and control that the batterer feels is directly focused on his intimate partner and victim, and his violent behavior will almost always revolve around her. This is the situation that must be dealt with: protecting a woman and her pregnancy, who is victim to the batterer’s violent world, trapped by his fists and her fear.

The Motherhood Protection Act would also require the collection of data involving the homicide of pregnant women. To date, little information is available on the number of pregnant homicide victims. This data gathering would provide us with valuable information on the breadth of these crimes and help us shape policies to better address the prevention of domestic violence against pregnant women.

This session, the Maine Legislature will consider a counter measure, Rep. Brian Duprey’s bill, “An Act to Protect Unborn Children from Acts of Violence,” which seeks to establish a separate crime for harm to a fetus and create a new cause of action on behalf of the unborn.

The result of this bill would be that the crime committed against the pregnant woman is no longer the focus. Instead, the legislation focuses exclusively on the fetus. In fact, Rep. Duprey’s bill makes no mention at all of the crime against the pregnant woman, no acknowledgment of her pain or her loss.

The sponsors of the Duprey bill argue that it will deter violent crimes against pregnant women. In reality, this legislation is part of a national strategy to use the criminal code to establish separate rights for a fetus and create a legal argument to be used in attempts to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade.

As evidenced in other states, courts are often compelled to explicitly address the right to choose an abortion in the context of these laws – again diverting attention from the victim of the crime. Regardless of how one feels about abortion, it is fundamentally wrong to try to exploit these tragic events and to use the criminal code to promote an unrelated agenda.

Protecting pregnancies requires a commitment to women’s health and prenatal care. Healthy women with healthy pregnancies will result from providing women and families with the information, health care and services necessary for planned pregnancies in safe and strong homes. By no means is the Motherhood Protection Act the final solution to these crimes, but it’s a step toward protecting the pregnancy by seeking to protect the woman.

Beth Edmonds is the president of the Maine Senate. She represents the communities of Brunswick, Freeport, Harpswell and Pownal.

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