Unborn Child

WHY THE fuss about the Bush administration changing the word "fetus" to "unborn child" so low-income women can be eligible for prenatal care (editorial Feb. 4)? NOW stands for National Organization for Women, right? Planned Parenthood's name implies that it would be in favor of anything that would help parents. So why aren't they happy about the proposed new regulation thay will do something for women who are pregnant? Let me suggest it is because NOW never was for women; it has always been for abortion.

M OMENTS after a Philadelphia jury on Monday found him guilty of the first-degree murder of his pregnant girlfriend, Tyrell Hart quoted Scripture, thanked God and opined that his victim was in a better place. "It may seem like I lost. But actually, I won because before I came here, I was a lost soul," Hart, 22, said before being led away to begin serving a life sentence without parole. The Common Pleas Court jury of eight women and four men convicted him of the fatal Oct. 14, 2009, shooting of Selene Raynor, 21. The jury also found him guilty of third-degree murder in the death of the couple's unborn child.

When Richard Greist stabbed his pregnant wife to death, then mutilated her unborn baby and stabbed out the eye of his daughter in East Coventry in 1978, everyone agreed he had gone insane. Now, 14 years later, Greist's lawyer is petitioning the state Superior Court to set him free, contending that he is no longer dangerous. It used to be that courts could keep someone like Greist - acquitted of the grisly crime by reason of insanity - confined indefinitely, so long as a judge found him severely mentally disabled.

During his closing argument yesterday, the prosecutor in Matthew Eshbach's triple-murder trial used a clock to count down the minutes during which, he said, Eshbach sat by idly as one victim was choked to death. Eshbach's defense attorney focused on a blow-up of an autopsy photo, arguing that the location of neck bruises pointed to the culpability of Eshbach's codefendant, Michael McGrory. After four days of testimony, Chester County Court Judge Juan R. Sanchez turned the case over to the jury of seven men and five women at 5:10 p.m. They continued to deliberate last night.

A South Philadelphia bartender who was drunk when he slammed into a stalled car in Camden County early one late-summer 1994 morning and killed a pregnant woman was found guilty yesterday by a Camden County jury of reckless manslaughter. Angelo Auddino Jr., 30, a bartender and waiter at LaVigna Restaurant on Front Street, could be sentenced to 10 years in prison on the manslaughter conviction when he returns to Camden County Superior Court on July 12. The jury heard almost a week of testimony and then deliberated about six hours before finding Auddino guilty of manslaughter and three counts of assault by automobile.

Tensions escalated and tempers flared yesterday on day three of the capital murder trial of Matthew Eshbach, who is charged with the homicides of a Pottstown couple and their unborn child. One defense witness invoked the Fifth Amendment, refusing to testify, and a second insisted that he could not recall a statement he gave to an investigator less than a week ago. His memory lapse prompted defense attorney Christian J. Hoey to insinuate dirty tricks on the part of the prosecution, rousing indignation from Chester County District Attorney Joseph W. Carroll.

It was snowing as the young couple navigated the slippery Cape May Courthouse roads, their feverish baby daughter tucked in the back seat of their Ford Explorer. Dr. Eric Thomas and his wife Tracy had set out for the local emergency room with their 18-month-old daughter about midnight on that February night in 1997. They never arrived. Just minutes into the drive, as ice crusted on the windshield wipers and a six-month pregnant Tracy maneuvered the sport utility vehicle, a deer crossed the road and the Explorer swerved into a telephone pole, the dentist would later tell police.

A Sept. 3 Inquirer editorial about pro-life activists said the Supreme Court gave women a constitutional right to have an abortion. The Fifth Amendment of our Constitution says, "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law. " Since an unborn child has never been convicted of a crime, his or her Fifth Amendment rights are being violated during an abortion. The Constitution says nothing about a woman's right to have an abortion and enough to establish an unborn child's right to live.

IN RESPONSE to the reader who believes that Laci and Connor's Law is simply a plot to undermine abortion: Wake up! The overwhelming majority of Americans agree with this law. If this law puts a face to an unborn child, then so be it - but don't bash a law that is intended to defend life in all forms! You make yourself and your pro-abortion movement look incredibly insensitive and self- absorbed. Patricia Lowery Sellersville, Pa.

The present attempt of the medical profession to force a woman to have a Caesarian section in order to save the life of her unborn child reflects the inconsistencies in the judicial system. It's ironic that women can obtain abortions at will, yet this woman cannot leave the life of her unborn child in the hands of the One who gives life. In both instances, the bureaucratic system is playing God. Lawmakers who are strangers to the mothers, and to the unborn children, are deciding whether these children will live or die. In these types of cases, the medical profession rules according to medical ethics, and the judicial system rules according to their interpretation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

STROUDSBURG, Pa. - A Stroudsburg man pleaded guilty Wednesday in the stabbing death of a pregnant woman two years ago. Ruben Velazquez Jr., 42, entered the plea to two counts of third-degree murder in Monroe County Court. He was charged in the February 2011 slayings of Krystle Ann Vasquez, 24, and her unborn child. Authorities said Vasquez was eight months pregnant. Defense attorney T. Alex Jones said Velazquez faces five to 40 years in prison on each count when he is sentenced June 21.

NEW YORK - A pregnant young woman who was feeling ill was headed to the hospital with her husband early Sunday when the car they were riding in was hit, killing them both, but their baby boy was born prematurely and survived, authorities and a relative said. The driver of a BMW slammed into the car carrying Nachman and Raizy Glauber, both 21, at an intersection in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, said Isaac Abraham, a neighbor of Raizy Glauber's parents who lives two blocks from the scene of the crash.

I WENT to Gettysburg over the weekend, embarrassingly for the first time. I say "embarrassingly" because, given the fact that I've spent a half-century in this state, you would think I'd have taken the time to visit the most sacred and famous battleground in the nation. I'd urge anyone who has yet to stand on that hallowed ground to make the trip, especially this year as we commemorate the 150th anniversary of both the Emancipation Proclamation and the battle. There is the sense, looking out over the now-quiet fields, that while America was born at Valley Forge and Bunker Hill, the crucible of Gettysburg forged its conscience.

THERE ARE NO good guys in the Todd Akin affair, just opportunists. The Missouri congressman, who set off a firestorm by stupidly trying to distinguish "legitimate" from "illegitimate" rape, has managed to do the unthinkable: bring together liberal, pro-choice Democrats and conservative, family-values Republicans in a bipartisan Kumbaya of condemnation. The united front is vaguely heartwarming. There are so many villains in this scenario, it's hard to know exactly where to start. I suppose we should go with the fellow who set the whole darn thing in motion, the one who was going to recapture the "Show Me" seat for the GOP. Until, that is, he opened his mouth.

The bad blood involving Tovoyia Owens' boyfriend — the father of her unborn child — and two brothers from their West Philadelphia neighborhood reached a boil Feb. 7, 2011, when the three men squared off outside Traffic Court in Spring Garden. Deputy sheriffs rushed from the building at 8th and Spring Garden streets to break up the knockdown fistfight that led to the death of Owens, 21. The young mother, who was three months pregnant, had gotten caught up in the scuffle.

If you want to exercise dominion over someone, strip him of his humanity. In some cases, it's not just a metaphor. Africans were brought here naked, in chains. But that's rare. Usually, the dehumanization has little to do with exterior insults and more with intangibles, like abusive psychologies and oppressive laws. Blacks were still slaves under Jim Crow, even though they were clothed. Women were second-class citizens until we obtained the right to change government, that precious vote, but even before the 18th Amendment we were fashion plates.

M OMENTS after a Philadelphia jury on Monday found him guilty of the first-degree murder of his pregnant girlfriend, Tyrell Hart quoted Scripture, thanked God and opined that his victim was in a better place. "It may seem like I lost. But actually, I won because before I came here, I was a lost soul," Hart, 22, said before being led away to begin serving a life sentence without parole. The Common Pleas Court jury of eight women and four men convicted him of the fatal Oct. 14, 2009, shooting of Selene Raynor, 21. The jury also found him guilty of third-degree murder in the death of the couple's unborn child.

On the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade , we ask how the atrocities committed at the Gosnell clinic in West Philadelphia could have happened. Wasn't Roe v. Wade supposed to make abortion "safe, legal, and rare"? Has it not, instead, allowed for Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who has been charged in a woman's death and with killing infants? What desperate circumstances lead women to frequent such an establishment? One might suggest that more education about contraception might solve this problem, but in fact, 54 percent of women obtaining an abortion were using contraception in the month they became pregnant, according to a 2002 study cited by the Guttmacher Institute.

By Hillary Jordan Algonquin Books. 341 pp $24.95 Reviewed by Katherine Bailey In her second novel, When She Woke , Hillary Jordan imagines a totalitarian future world in which life is not worth living. Like The Scarlet Letter , it is a portrayal of an adulterer cast out by society. In many ways, it is a retelling of Nathaniel Hawthorne's 19th-century classic. And like Margaret Atwood's 1985 The Handmaid's Tale , it is an exploration of a society's subjugation of women.

A Chester County prosecutor took issue Thursday with an East Fallowfield man's pleas for leniency so he could support the twin boys he was convicted of assaulting in the womb. In May, a Chester County Court jury convicted Shawn M. Walker-Johnson, 22, of aggravated assault on an unborn child and aggravated assault on his ex-girlfriend for four separate attacks between July and September 2010, during the woman's pregnancy. Judge Anthony A. Sarcione sentenced Walker-Johnson to a prison term of nine to 18 years.