Great news!  The WV Unborn Victims of Violence Act (S 566, HB 4518) is expected to be voted on this week.  Please encourage your state Senators to support the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (Senate Bill 566).  (Email, phone calls, letters, faxes ASAP.) Go to the our website:  www.wvforlife.org for legislators' addresses or call:  (877-565-3447)

In addition, the U.S. House of Representative is expected to take up the Federal version on Thursday, February 26.  We expect Reps. Mollohan, Capito, and Rahall to support the bill as they have already done so in the past.  Please
encourage Senators Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller to support the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (H.R. 1997, S 1019).   They can be reached at:

Senator Robert Byrd - (202) 224-3954
311 Hart Building
Washington, DC  20510
e-mail:  Senator_Byrd@Byrd.senate.gov

Sen. Jay Rockefeller - (202) 224-6472
531 Hart Building
Washington, DC  20510
e-mail: senator@rockefeller.senate.gov


Following is an op-ed piece written by NRLC's Douglas Johnson:

Are There Any 'Unborn Victims'?

By Douglas Johnson, National Right to Life Committee Legislative
Director
February 23, 2004
Legfederal@aol.com
www.nrlc.org

    When a criminal attacks a pregnant woman, injuring or killing both
her and her unborn child, has he claimed one victim, or two?
     It is a timely question, as the State of California prepares to try

Scott Peterson on two homicide charges:  One for his wife Laci, and the
second for their unborn son Conner.  California is one of 29 states that

prosecute for fetal homicide.
     Currently in West Virginia, if a criminal act kills an unborn
child, even during the final months of pregnancy, the law does not
recognize the unborn child as a crime victim.  But bills currently under

consideration in the state legislature (S. 566, HB 4518), which have
strong support in both houses, would allow homicide charges to be filed

for unlawful killing of "a member of the species homo sapiens,  at any
stage of development while carried in the womb of the mother."
     The phrase "carried in the womb of the mother" clearly excludes any

application to a human embryo in a laboratory, or anywhere else, prior
to the point that the existence of a pregnancy can be proved beyond a
reasonable doubt.
     Congress is also about to confront the fetal homicide issue.  On
February 26, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on the Unborn
Victims of Violence Act, a bill to extend recognition to unborn victims
of federal crimes.  The House has passed this bill before, in 2001, with

support from U.S. Reps. Alan Mollohan, Shelly Moore Capito, and Nick Joe

Rahall.
     The U.S. Senate, which has never before considered the issue of
fetal homicide, is expected to take up the bill shortly thereafter.
President Bush supports the bill.  The two senators from West Virginina,


Robert C. Byrd and Jay Rockefeller, apparently have not yet taken a
position on the bill.
    Currently, if a criminal kills a human fetus while committing a
federal crime, he is not held responsible for taking that life.  Under
the bill, he would face a second charge for whatever harm he does to the

second victim, the "child in utero."
     However, the Senate will first consider a radically  different
"substitute" bill offered by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.).  This
"Feinstein single-victim substitute," while increasing penalties for
federal crimes against pregnant women, would also actually write into
federal law the doctrine that the mother is the only victim in a crime
like the Peterson case.  If the Feinstein bill is enacted, a pregnant
victim who survives a federal crime but loses her baby will be told by
prosecutors something like, "We're sorry you were assaulted -- but the
law says that nobody died."
     Abortion-rights advocacy groups are strongly opposed to fetal

homicide laws, arguing that a crime like the Peterson case really has
only one victim -- the pregnant woman.  These groups also say they fear
such laws will undermine Roe v. Wade.
     Both Senator Byrd and Senator Rockefeller support Roe.  But
regarding this bill, they should consider:
     *  None of the 29 state fetal homicide laws have had any impact on
abortion.
    *  Federal and state courts across the nation have uniformly
rejected all legal attacks on fetal homicide laws, ruling that
legislative bodies have every right to protect the "unborn child"
outside the abortion context.
     *  In three national polls, about 80% of the public supports fetal
homicide charges, and of those who do, two-thirds say the protection
should apply throughout pregnancy.
    In answering that question, "One victim, or two?," every senator
also should listen carefully to the voices of those who have lost loved
ones -- born and unborn – in terrible crimes of violence.

     Voices like that of Sharon Rocha -- mother of Laci Peterson,
grandmother of Conner -- who sent a letter to Senator John Kerry
(D-Mass.), urging him to reconsider his declared opposition to the
Unborn Victims of Violence Act and his support for the single-victim
approach.
    Rocha wrote that "adoption of such a single-victim proposal would be

a painful blow to those, like me, who are left to grieve after a
two-victim crime, because Congress would be saying that Conner and other

innocent victims like him are not really victims -- indeed, that they
never really existed at all.  But our grandson did live.  He had a name,

he was loved, and his life was violently taken from him before he ever
saw the sun."
     Rocha concluded, "There were two bodies that washed up in San
Francisco Bay, and the law should recognize that reality."
     Voices, also, like that of Carol Lyons.  On January 7, her daughter

Ashley, 18, was found shot to death in her car in Scott County,

Kentucky.  Only hours earlier, Ashley and Carol had watched a brand-new
ultrasound videotape of Ashley's unborn son, Landon.
     "Nobody can tell me that there were not two victims," Carol Lyons
said.
    "I placed Landon in his mother's arms, wrapped in a baby blanket
that I had sewn for him, just before I kissed my daughter goodbye for
the last time and closed the casket."
     One victim, or two?  Soon, federal and state lawmakers must give
their answer to Sharon Rocha, Carol Lyons, and many others who have lost

loved ones before birth.

2004 Legislative Session

The 2004 session begins on Wednesday, January 14, and already work is
underway on the pro-life legislative agenda of West Virginians for
Life.  Although more bills are to be introduced, West Virginians for
Life will focus on two primary bills:


Unborn Victims of Violence Act, sponsored by Senator Jeff Kessler and
Delegate Tim Ennis, would recognize the unborn child as a victim if he
is injured or killed during a criminal act.

Parental Notification - A bill to correct an enormous loophole in our
Parental Notification law will be sponsored by Del. Bobbie Warner and
Sen. Roman Prezioso.  NRLC considers W.Va.’s Parental Notice law an
“abortionists consent” law because a second abortionist can decide a
minor child is mature.

Call or write your legislators now and urge them to support this
legislation.

For further information, email us or contact the West Virginians for
Life state office at (304) 291-LIFE.