Proponents of the legislation claim that it’s necessary because the state’s current Stand Your Ground law isn’t broad enough. Although South Carolina already authorizes deadly force to protect against “imminent peril of death or great bodily injury,” some Republican lawmakers argue that doesn’t go far enough to protect pregnant women from all of the physical attacks that may harm their fetus, like being punched in the stomach.
Critics, on the other hand, believe it’s simply redundant. They also warn that granting more legal protections to fetuses, and defining life as beginning at conception, could end up threatening reproductive rights.
“There is some evidence that abortion opponents have been pursuing fetal homicide laws because they hope it will undermine abortion rights. It seems to be part of their overall strategy,” Elizabeth Nash, the states policy manager for the Guttmacher Institute, told ThinkProgress. Indeed, this back-door strategy to advance “personhood” has started to pop up in states around the country.
At least 36 states have fetal homicide laws that allow for the prosecution of crimes against pregnant women that resulted in the loss of a fetus. This legislation is typically carefully crafted to specify that abortion isn’t included, and avoids giving equal rights to fetuses by defining the crime in terms of the harm done to the pregnant women. But anti-choice groups like Americans United for Life continue to encourage states to pass broader protections in this area. “Americans United for Life has been at the forefront of developing and defending legislation to protect pregnant women and their unborn children from violent crime,” the group notes.
“No one wants to deny someone the right to defend themselves if they’re being attacked. But the question is how to do that effectively — and without going down the path of granting personhood to fetuses, which could run into the right to abortion,” Nash pointed out.