Student Charged With Killing Unborn Sons | AP

[ima_sinnic]

Sat May 8,12:45 AM ET

LUFKIN, Texas - A high school student has been charged with first-degree murder after police say he killed his unborn twin sons by beating his pregnant girlfriend.

Gerardo Flores, 18, was arrested Friday by Lufkin police after his 16-year-old girlfriend delivered twin boys stillborn at home and sought medical attention at an East Texas hospital, an arrest affidavit states. The teen was five months pregnant.

According to court documents, the girl denied anyone had beaten her, but Flores admitted he "may have hit her in the face and in the stomach" during a fight in their bedroom.

After the fight she started bleeding and he allegedly ordered her to "clean herself up," the documents said. She gave birth to the boys in the bathroom before an ambulance arrived. . . .

<snip>

The case could among the first prosecuted under a new Texas law that changes the definition of human life for a murder charge. . . . changes in the law also allow for the death penalty to be sought for a person convicted in the death of an unborn child. . . .

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=ap/fetus_deaths

:wtf: DEATH PENALTY? :wtf: has the world gone MAD?

[mike_c]

1. yes, it has....

The pigs are increasingly in charge of the barnyard.

[Old and In the Way]

2. What if the fetuses were1 week old?

Since Texas is saying that they have full rights of baby, how to protect those 1 week conceived babies? Will women be forced to take daily viability check-ups, so the state can track the fetuses whereabouts? Will miscarrage be changed to accidental manslaughter? How much government will we need in our bedrooms and wombs to protect all of these people?

Unintended consequences will surprise a lot of simple thinking people.

[UpInArms]

3. are these the same people

that are still supporting the atrocities in Iraq?

Can anyone make sense of this type of thinking?

My head hurts.

:argh:

[Warpy]

4. This is so stupid it hurts. It's stupid, even for Texas

Batterers often start beating the wife/GF when whe announes she's preggers. The main cause of death for pregnant women is homicide, usually at the hands of a spouse or boyfriend. They die pregnant.

The DA's gonna have an uphill battle on this one. He'd better search far and wide to find a corrupt ME. There are too many other things to go wrong, especially with a multiple pregnancy in a very young girl, for this to be an easy case to prove.

Really, if a punch to the belly could cause miscarriage, there would not be 5 billion of us walking around.

[maggrwaggr]

5. folks, she was five months pregnant

and what he did was awful.

He beat a pregnant woman.

Go right ahead and defend him, yeah, that'll look just GREAT.

:eyes:

[Warpy]

6. So throw him in the can for battery

Just don't try to make an unwinnable case that he "murdered" the holy feti.

[ima_sinnic]

7. nobody's "defending" him

. . . what he did is atrocious.
but the death penalty for assault is insane. what effing hypocrites! "life is sacred"--until the person is born.

[maggrwaggr]

8. okay, maybe I misunderstood

What they want to do is try this new law out.

And the guy may walk because of it.

Hmmmmmmmm

[lostnfound]

9. Prosecute him however they want -- GOOD.

I agree with you.

Some people consider a fetus to be fully human and others don't.
People holding the former view want to make abortion illegal; people holding the latter view want to keep abortion legal. We all have to live in this ONE world..so Roe V Wade was actually a compromise.

But does protecting the 'right-to-choose' mean that a fetus cannot be given ANY KIND of legal status -- with respect to violent acts by third parties? I don't think that is fair to this woman, or to any woman who considers her OWN fetus to be fully human.

Not to mention that some women go through tremendous ordeal to get pregnant, and may in some cases miss their only or last opportunity to have children.

The right-to-choose was given to WOMEN over their OWN pregnancies. It says nothing about the right for THIRD PARTIES to terminate someone else's pregnancy. Can't we make a legal distinction based on that?

If you read the text of the original Roe-v-Wade decision, it actually does talk about balancing the conflicting interests of the state, the woman, and the developing fetus.

[BiggJawn]

10. "Naw, don't go for Assault, let's try out that new 'fetus murder' law!"

"Yeah, the one our former governor signed? If the kid walks on that one, because there were stinkin' Liberals on the Jury, we can always go after him for assaulting her. Those panty-waist Franken-listeners always get moist over that!"

Overheard at the texas chapter of the "Every Sperm is Sacred Club"