[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5224-5225]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       UNBORN VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, the rest of today was spent on a very 
important initiative that was really long overdue.

[[Page 5225]]

That was addressing the issue of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.
  I very much appreciate the Democratic leadership working with us to 
have a unanimous consent agreement today where we could begin this 
morning and continue straight through in a very orderly way, have very 
good debate, very good amendments on the floor of the Senate, and then, 
8 hours after we began, to come to a conclusion with a vote that will 
have a huge impact, an impact on victims of violence that were 
protected in some States but in many States were not.
  The issue at hand really boiled down to that single question, that 
when a pregnant woman is murdered along with her unborn baby, is there 
one victim or are there two? All of this is very simple. It is simple 
to me in terms of understanding it, but also simple in that it applies 
so directly to humanity.
  There is a case that I never talked about on the floor today. It came 
to mind this afternoon in a press conference later where there were 
four families that were victims of violence, and they told their 
stories. It was very powerful. I am not sure if it was captured by the 
news cameras there or not, or if many people will see it--very powerful 
stories.
  But it did remind me of a story, a recent case in my own State of 
Tennessee. It was an early morning in January, and two young men gunned 
down Tracey Owens on an empty street in south Nashville. Tracey was 
between 38 and 40 weeks pregnant, just about ready to deliver, could 
have delivered any day. The perpetrators said they believed they had 
hit the pregnant woman with their truck and they were afraid they would 
get in trouble. So they stopped and they got out, and as Tracey was 
laying there crying out for help, one of the assailants just looked at 
her and said: Here is your help. And with that, he shot her in the 
abdomen, actually shot her five times with a .22-caliber pistol. One of 
those bullets actually hit the baby and she was about ready to deliver.
  After murdering Tracey and her unborn baby, the two men went back to 
an ex-girlfriend's apartment. They cleaned the weapon off, and then 
they fell asleep. They were picked up after a motorist found Tracey's 
body and a witness at the scene told investigators they had seen the 
two men shooting at parked cars. Investigators quickly found the 
culprits, and they quickly confessed. The perpetrators now sit in jail 
awaiting the grand jury.
  A police detective in the case said: In my 22 years on the job, I 
have never seen anyone executed--and I mean executed--because someone 
thought they had hit the person with a vehicle.
  Tennessee is one of 29 States with a fetal homicide law on the books. 
So then the question arises, was Tracey's baby, who was only days away 
from delivery, also slain? That is what this bill was about today. That 
is what this act was about. That is why it is so important that this 
body responded and responded so positively with the final vote, now 
just an hour or an hour and a half ago. The answer to that question to 
me is simple. I think it is simple. Ultimately, no matter how you voted 
today, the answer is straightforward.
  The reason why I use this example is because it is so obvious. You 
only have to look at the autopsy results themselves. The medical 
examiner did not examine just Tracey alone; she examined the baby as 
well. Indeed, that is how we know that the baby was shot by one of 
those five shots. That little baby was hit. And common sense tells us 
that in examining the murder victims, the coroner was faced not just 
with one dead body but with two dead bodies.
  We have groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union which 
opposed the bill, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. They said that 
counting two victims is a ``dangerous attempt to separate a woman from 
her fetus in the eyes of the law.'' In other words, they tried to cast 
this as an abortion issue.
  One of the wonderful things about the discussion today is that 
everytime someone tried to cast it as an abortion issue, that was 
debunked and was made very clear that this is not an abortion issue.
  When a husband intentionally punches his expectant wife in the 
abdomen with the express purpose of causing a miscarriage, it is he who 
is separating the woman from the fetus.
  I would argue that when a boyfriend tires of his pregnant girlfriend 
and hires an assassin to dispose of the girlfriend and the baby, he is 
killing two human beings. One may even argue that the baby is in fact--
and many times is--the primary target.
  But we don't need to examine the motives of the perpetrators in these 
real life cases to reach those conclusions. Even if an assailant is 
unaware of his victim's pregnancy, should he, the perpetrator, decide 
whether or not the baby exists? Should we accept that because he didn't 
know when he was killing one person he was snuffing out the life of a 
second, there is no second crime?
  The Unborn Victims of Violence Act does. And now we know it is going 
to go to the President. This was the exact same act that passed in the 
House of Representatives and, thus, we know there is no stopping this 
one. It is going to go to the President. This act protects the rights 
of the baby to come into this world as the mother intends, and it holds 
the criminal responsible for endangering the life and the health of the 
child.
  We did have an amendment today from the senior Senator from 
California that was offered that said it was sufficient to add special 
penalties for attacking a woman who is pregnant. Indeed, it really 
pushed aside the intent of the underlying bill and said it is 
sufficient to add special penalties for attacking a woman who is 
pregnant. And tougher laws will assuage the feelings of the devastated 
family and compensate the mother for her sense of loss. All of that 
misses the point, the heart and soul of this underlying legislation. 
The harmed child is not notional. The harmed child is not a sense. The 
harmed child is not an emotion. The baby is real and the loss is real.
  Again, I wish my colleagues could have heard today the four families 
who suffered such real and tragic losses. The second life has been 
harmed, whether intentional or not. Verbal evasions and euphemisms 
simply cannot hide this plain fact. I think about an expectant mother, 
her excitement about her family, her future family, how she starts to 
show, and even strangers, when she walks by, begin to smile and ask, 
``When is the baby due?'' You cannot help but think of friends who are 
throwing showers or the metro rider who stands up and offers his seat 
for that expectant mother.
  Our natural reaction is to celebrate the miracle of life and offer 
our love and compassion, not for a theory, or a theoretical baby, but 
for an actual baby--a baby we hope will be born and will be healthy.
  Well, this act, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which now is 
going to be the law of the land, recognizes the simple reality. It is 
not about abortion, as its opponents took great pains to argue but 
which was debunked today. It doesn't undermine the 1973 Roe v. Wade 
Supreme Court decision, as even pro- choice legal scholars admit. The 
Unborn Victims of Violence Act is about simple humanity, simple 
reality.
  A child in the womb, whether you call it a baby or a fetus, is alive, 
it is real, and it deserves our best efforts to protect it from 
criminal harm, and with the action of this body today, and with the 
action of the House of Representatives in the past, this act will 
become the law of the land, soon to be signed by the President of the 
United States.

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