Prohibiting Partial-Birth Infanticide Initiative: I-694
The initiative was designed to accomplish what neither the federal government nor any state has been able to do -- stop the killing of infants in the process of being born. Out of the 24 states that have attempted to do so by passing a partial-birth abortion ban law, nine have already been stricken down in the courts. The problem is essentially one of semantics: although, with Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, the Court legalized abortion for any reason through the full nine months of pregnancy, it did not address and apparently never thought of the possibility that abortion proponents would end up killing the "fetus" after taking it from the womb.
No court decision, at any level, has ever addressed the act of killing a child in the birth canal. In fact, Roe struck down all of the Texas laws surrounding the one that prohibited killing a child during "parturition" (birthing) but left that law standing because the case was brought against the laws preventing abortion, not those preventing the killing of a living infant as it is being born. That law has never been successfully challenged and is still "on the books" today! Initiative 694 is premised on this fact and the very reasonable hope that the courts will agree -- killing an infant during birthing is not abortion, abortion laws do not apply, Washington state certainly does have an appropriate interest in "protecting potential life" and our partial-birth infanticide law is valid!
The reason I say semantics plays a big role is that all of the state laws (and the federal law) address this hideous procedure as a type of abortion. On that basis, to pass judicial muster, they must include an exception for the "health" of the mother or the courts will strike them down as not conforming to the precedent set by the Doe decision which effectively circumvents any law that would limit any abortions.
The pro-life side lost before they began with all these efforts because they bought into the rhetoric of the opposition -- claiming that the procedure that pulls an infant nearly all the way out of its mother but pauses long enough to vacuum out its brain before withdrawing the body completely is properly termed "partial-birth abortion." It is really a special class of infanticide -- partial-birth infanticide to be exact. Section 1 of the proposed law defines the events in no uncertain terms:
AN ACT Relating to limiting partial-birth infanticide; adding a
new chapter to Title 9A RCW; and prescribing penalties.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:
NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. The sovereign people hereby find
that, in accordance with current scientific evidence, medical
terminology and practice, and decisions of the United States
supreme court in Roe v. Wade and other cases:
(1) Pregnancy begins with conception and ends when the
process of birth begins.
(2) The process of birth begins when a living child begins
to exit the uterus or womb by any means and ends when the child
is fully delivered or expelled from the vagina or birth canal
by any means.
(3) Birth is an irreversible process that, once begun, will
inevitably result in the complete delivery or expulsion of an
infant child.
(4) Even a living fetus that is prematurely and artificially
extracted from the uterus or womb into the vagina or birth canal
will be born alive if not killed during the process of birth.
(5) Scientifically, medically, and legally, a child in the
process of birth is no longer a fetus, but an infant.
(6) The intentional killing of an infant child in the process
of birth is infanticide.
(7) Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by
intentionally killing a living human fetus in the uterus or womb
before the process of birth begins.
(8) Regulating partial-birth infanticide is not regulating
abortion, but rather, is proscribing infanticide by restricting
the killing of a live infant who is in the process of birth, that
is, who has exited by any means, at least in part, the uterus or
womb and has entered by any means, at least in part, the vagina or
birth canal.
(9) Although the United States supreme court has declared a
right to choose an abortion to terminate a pregnancy, it has never
held that there is a fundamental or constitutional right to kill a
partially born infant, that is, a child in the process of birth.
(10) Because abortion is the termination of a pregnancy, a
prohibition against killing an infant child in the process of birth
does not implicate abortion jurisprudence.
(11) This chapter is not intended to stop any abortion
performed to terminate a pregnancy, but is intended to stop the
killing of partially born infant children and to establish and
maintain a clear and impenetrable barrier against partial-birth
infanticide.
Evidently, there is strong opposition within the Washington State Attorney General's office to I-694's language. The responsibility of the Attorney General is to see to it that the Ballot Title and Summary accurately describe an initiative and are not misleading. In the week ending Saturday, April 18th, the AG's office submitted their proposed wording for a Ballot Title and Summary to the Committee to Stop Infanticide (CSI). In it, they forsook the exceedingly clear wording of the initiative to coin their own nomenclature. If their description were to be used, no one viewing it -- at the top of the initiative petition or on the ballot in November -- would realize that this effort is NOT about stopping abortion but about preventing infanticide. There is a world of difference in people's minds between these two.
In the ongoing exchange between the Committee and the AG, divine intervention couldn't hurt - PRAYER IS IN ORDER.
Prepared by Sidney Turbyfill, Policy Analyst, WTV Coalition
TO PARTICIPATE IN THE CAMPAIGN:
First, contact the Committee to Stop Infanticide, by E-mail at: <StopInfanticide@juno.com> or by regular mail at: 19030 Lenton Pl. SE, Suite #601, Monroe, WA 98272. Also, telephone: (360) 863-1077 / FAX: (360) 863-0868 to locate your area coordinator for petitions and plans.
Second, help organize your church and get petitions to the members.
Finally, send a donation for the substantial expenses.
Most importantly -- Don't forget to pray. It'll take a lot of that, too.
[PRINTOUT NOTE: "Page Setup" - margins to .75" top, bottom, left and right to print out on two pages through "Prepared by" line.]
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