The following urgent request is from Karen Kubby, director of the Emma Goldman Clinic in Iowa City:
Friends of reproductive rights,
Please take the time to communicate to Governor Vilsack to veto the Unborn Victim of Violence Act, S.F. 2254, which was passed yesterday. Contact information is below.
This act changes the word “fetus” and replaces it with “unborn child” which would be defined as a person, that “includes a member of the species homo sapiens, at ANY stage of development when carried in the womb or after birth (emphasis added).
This bill would create separate penalties for injury or death to the fetus, defining the fetus as a separate person. You can view S.F. 2254 at
The intention of this bill is not to create enhanced penalties for those who perpetrate violence against pregnant women. The intention of this bill is to begin the definition of the fetus as a person with full rights. Even though the bill provides an exception for legal abortion, it can eventually lead to the US Supreme Court overturning Roe, which states that the fetus
is not be viewed as a person under the law.
Governor Vilsack needs to hear from us very soon. He might only have until next week to veto S.F. 2254.
1. Roe explicitly says that a fetus is not a person.
2. Iowa law already allows for a separate penalty for unlawful termination of pregnancy.
3. Enhanced penalties for violence against pregnant women is a better legal route for accountability than creating fetal personhood that can lead to erosion of women's rights in the future.
“Please veto the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. Iowa already allows for a separate penalty for unlawfully terminating a pregnancy, a class c felony.
Signing this bill does nothing to further accountability to those who are violent towards pregnant women. What it does is create a legal conversation to create fetal rights, which will eventually make women invisible and unable to lawfully control their fertility.”
The Honorable Tom Vilsack
Governor
State Capitol
Des Moines, IA 50319
(Thank you, Dawn!)
Blog For Iowa 
Thanks for this alert, Linda.
I sent my email this morning!
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I am terribly sorry but I have to be a consciencious objector on this issue. I do not believe that this subject should even be a part of government legislation, but I do believe–for myself–that a fetus IS a separate person. There should be no government envolvement on this issue at all. So, tell me what I should do about this. I do not wish women's rights to suffer at the hands of men who have no idea what carrying and giving birth to children is and then having to sacrifice for at least 18 years for those children–actually all your life after the child is born. I'm really mixed up about how to respond. I have made peace with myself about letting women abort embryos, but fetuses who could survive with proper care are indeed human persons to me. I am not saying that a woman should have to carry them to term. The child could be taken from the womb and given to people who want the child. That way, the natural mother would not suffer if the pregnancy is harmful to her life, and the child would be allowed to live and grow and maybe become an asset to the population of Earth.
Compassion knows no limits, not even unborn children. I am compassionate towards both the mother-to-be and the child she carries.
Give me some help here folks. Thanks.
Gloral
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Gloral,
This is a difficult subject, with moral and ethical implications for the individual as well as society. I once attended a Common Ground workshop to bring pro-choice and pro-life folks together, not to talk to each other, but to LISTEN to each other. It was wonderful! Although I am pro-choice, I have much more understanding now
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Thank you very much for clearing the terminology and other things up. I knew that fetuses are possibly viable after about 24 weeks. It is those babies I refer to in my comment that you replied to. I would want every option to be used to help them continue life after being removed from the mother's womb. That is all I am asking for. So, it seems that I can help here after all. I sincerely appreciate you helping me understand the terminology of the legislation as compared to the scientific and medical terminology. I was a biology major in college way back in antiquity–1962 to 1966, no degree earned–so you did not confuse me. It is the legislation which is confusing.
I also read in my latest Discover magazine that only about 1/3rd of fertilized eggs survive and adhere to the uterus. This is about 3 to 5 days from the conception, if I remember correctly. So that is a factor also. They just cannot predict which fertilized eggs at that time called, I beleive, a blastule or something like that, will be viable at all. So I think that the legislators should go back to school and learn some biology before they mess with people's lives.
Thanks again,
Gloral
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