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Yes, it does.

True, but this was also directed towards people who think such laws should be stricken.

Every time I think "what if these laws didn't exist?" I see this scenario in my mind -- a minor gets pregnant and hides it as long as possible, parents find out, parents turn out to be nuts, parents beat daughter in attempt to terminate the pregnancy.

Then there's the whole opportunity for abusive husbands to suddenly not want their wives "pregnant and fat", and beat the s**t out of them to terminate the pregnancy.

Basically, I'm afraid of anti-choicers.

It's not that such laws shouldn't exist... it's that the killing of a fetus should not be the equivalent of killing a born person, since a fetus is clearly not a born person.

If it's in the last two months, where the fetus was very likely to survive (and by that I don't mean the 10% chance of survival they have at week= 20something)... then sure, you could make the assumption it would have survived and give harsher penalties than you would for simple assault against a woman. However, there was no guarantee that it would, or that the woman wouldn't naturally miscarry (even that late into the pregnancy).

It seem incredibly foolish to me to charge a man with 1st degree murder because he slapped his pregnant girlfriend and she miscarried. Charge him with assault. Charge him with "loss of pregnancy." But do NOT charge him with murder and put him to death because he slapped some girl and her uterus vomited.

It makes more sense than a lot of the crap pro-lifers keep feeding me.

A person is not a person until it is born. Unless you want to change personhood and citizenship laws, this is just the way it is.

It's ridiculous that ANYONE should be charged with a double murder when killing a pregnant women. The murder of the woman is enough. I suppose you could argue an extra harsh sentence because she is in a position that makes her more vulnerable, as would killing a child, an elderly person, a disabled person, etc... But I fully feel that a double murder charge is idiotic.

If you want it to be a person and you want it to have the same protection as a person, then make it a legal person. This would include "conception certificates" instead of birth certificates (or "X weeks of gestation certificates"), it would include death certificates in the event of a miscarriage, and it would include a proper legal funeral in the event of a death. It would also include legal citizenship and protection separate from that of the mother's in an embassy in foreign lands.

A pregnant woman who smokes or takes drugs should be charged with forcing a minor to ingest said drugs. A person who sells alcohol or cigarettes to a pregnant woman should be charged with ALSO selling these things to a minor.

What other rights and responsibilities do people have? Either way, they should ALL be extended to the fetus. Not just the ones you find "cnovenient."

And by the way, even if she is in the parking lot on her way to the front door, it doesn't matter. Unless you have her EXPLICIT CONSENT, you have no right touching her or anything inside her body.

Precisely. Conception certificates, or even X Month Gestation certificates are completely illogical and almost impossible to enforce.

A birth is an act that can be pin-pointed and recorded. The exact time can be put down. Names are generally chosen and sex should be fairly obvious.

Birth is the most natural and logical point in the human's life to assign legal personhood.

Can you imagine the stress on the system to add every conception to the citizenship registry? Especially if a name/sex/eye color/hair color cannot be associated with the SIN or whatever it is the US uses? There would have to be a whole separate system for those who have not yet been born which, right there, would already set them as being "different" from normal people.