"fetus" now being used in headlines - Democratic Underground

luaneryder

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Sun Nov-21-04 09:20 AM
Original message

"fetus" now being used in headlines

I-85 crash proves deadly (Headline)
Three Raleigh residents, a fetus and a Maryland man die in Warren County as a family tries to gather for the Thanksgiving holiday (tagline)

www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1849210p-8175853c.html

This is the first time I've seen a headline with a fetus being singled out as a fatality.

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Deja Q

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Sun Nov-21-04 09:23 AM
Response to Original message

1. How about the woman allowing the fetus to grow? That's not in the headline

though it is in the article.

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Heyo

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Sun Nov-21-04 09:23 AM
Response to Original message

2. Legally...

.. it really should only matter if it's a murder or a death criminally caused by somebody else.

Heyo

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Sun Nov-21-04 09:25 AM
Response to Original message

3. At least the headline writer didn't use "unborn child"

Or any other of those right-to-life euphemisms for a fetus.

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lil-petunia

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Sun Nov-21-04 09:29 AM
Response to Original message

4. AHAH The penny just dropped. This explains Scott Peterson

For months I wondered why are they wasting all this time on this crime. And why all the cable would talk at least once a day on the status of the trial. I just got it.

Here is the logic. If a crime is committed against a carrying future mommy, the California statute allows another charge for fetus death.
Here, the fetus was killed in utero. Therefore, a fetus was alive. therefore a fetus is a kid, therefore abortion is murder.

and these cable news stations are driving this home as part of their new and improved effort to make us a truly christian nation safe for death penalties, and safe from therapeutic abortions.

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Francesca

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Sun Nov-21-04 10:03 AM
Response to Reply #4

6. I have conflicting feelings about this

that are difficult to justify.. my feeling is if I were pregnant and wanted the baby and someone stabbed me in the stomach and killed it that would be murder.. am totally pro choice however but am having a hard time reconciling this conflict...

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lil-petunia

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Sun Nov-21-04 10:07 AM
Response to Reply #6

7. tough ethical questions are never easy. That is why murder cases

have a tough standard and an even tougher burden on the prosecution. The criminal's state of mind, his/her intent, must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. In many cases, the act itself shows premeditation, ergo intent. Others arre much harder.

for ex, if someone was merely robbing you, had no knowledge of your condition in the first trimester (I know, an outdated term today), and caused injury in the process of robbing you, they could get the death penalty even if you lived.

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bri_in_austin

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Sun Nov-21-04 09:34 AM
Response to Original message

5. Arg!!!

Man, I marched on Washington for the March for Women's Lives last spring, and I can't stand the direction our nation has continued to go in since. We need to march again! I hope someone is already organizing the march!

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DS1

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Sun Nov-21-04 10:17 AM
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8. Fetus unavailable for comment

What's next? 200,000 human eggs were lost when a plane carrying 41 went down in China?

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chiburb

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Sun Nov-21-04 10:22 AM
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9. Chicago Tribune public editor writes about this today:

"Scott Peterson guilty of killing wife, fetus"

----------

That was the headline at the bottom of Page 1 Saturday. It provoked a call from a reader, Eileen Dolehide of Darien, who wanted to know whether it is Tribune policy to refer to a child in utero as a fetus until it has been born.

"Now Conner is eight months along in pregnancy," said Mrs. Dolehide. "He should at least be termed an unborn child rather than a medical term called a fetus."

Some other news organizations apparently felt the same way. The Washington Post, in its Sunday story on the Peterson verdict, used the term "unborn child." The New York Times used both "unborn child" and "fetus." The Associated Press referred at one point to "the son she was carrying" and in another to the "fetus." The Tribune was consistent in using "fetus."

Randy Weissman, deputy managing editor/operations, noted that that was consistent with the guideline in the Tribune's current stylebook.

However, a new edition of the stylebook, scheduled for publication shortly, will permit the use of "unborn child" when the fetus is in the third trimester of gestation.

That change can't come quickly enough for Mrs. Dolehide.

With the use of the term fetus, she said, "It's almost like there's a concerted effort to dehumanize the child."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0411180204nov18,1,1632592.column?coll=chi-news-col

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no_hypocrisy

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Sun Nov-21-04 10:32 AM
Response to Original message

10. Noticed it too in NYC. Newsradio reported that a woman, pregnant

Edited on Sun Nov-21-04 10:33 AM by no_hypocrisy

two months was critically injured, and the status of the fetus, (Note: 2 month pregnancy is an embryo, not a fetus) was undetermined. The copy repeated the status of "the fetus" twice.

Heeeeere we go. When a group of cells less than 2" in length gets the same copy if not more than its "host", then we're looking at trouble.

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THUNDER HANDS

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Sun Nov-21-04 10:44 AM
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11. no mention of the 500,000 sperm lost

every sperm is sacred!

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Nobody

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Sun Nov-21-04 10:45 AM
Response to Original message

12. When are you legally old enough to vote?

When your 18th birthday rolls around or your 18th anniversary of conception?

Legally, life starts at birth. That's the moment that is recorded for posterity. You become a legal adult on your 21st BIRTHDAY in most states, you have to have passed your 16th BIRTHDAY to be legally able to drive, the school system allows you to send your child to school only after that child's BIRTHDAY is on or before a certain month.

If I went by conception date and served someone who passed their 21st CONCEPTION date but not their BIRTHDAY, I could be arrested by that nice pro-life cop for serving alcohol to a minor.

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