DOUBLE MURDER
by David Sisler
On Christmas Eve, 2002, Laci Peterson’s pregnancy was nearly full-term. The nursery was finished. Laci and her husband, Scott, had decided to name their baby Conner. Then she disappeared. On April 13 a baby’s body was found, washed up near a marina. The next day a woman’s body was discovered close by. Three days after that, Scott Peterson was arrested and charged with the double murder of his wife, Laci, and their unborn son.
Whether Scott Peterson is convicted of this crime is – obviously – yet to be seen. He should be tried in a court of law, however, not the court of public opinion.
But the trial in the latter court has already begun. One woman who watched Peterson being delivered to jail said, “We’ve been waiting a long time for the police to arrest Scott.”
California State Attorney General Bill Lockyer calls the case a “slam-dunk.”
According to columnist Geoff Metcalf, Laci’s father, Dennis Rocha, told the family, “Well, they finally arrested the (expletive deleted).”
According to California law, an unborn baby is defined as human after eight weeks of pregnancy. In Georgia and Michigan, an unborn child is protected by law after when movement is first felt in the womb – “quickening” – occurs. Pennsylvania’s standard is 15 weeks. Missouri and Minnesota have it right – the unborn baby is a living being at conception.
By any of the standards of the two dozen states which have “fetal homicide” laws on the books, a double murder was perpetrated against Lori Peterson and Conner Peterson.
By California law the death penalty standard has been met. The person who is guilty should be executed for the murder of two human beings. Sadly, as of this writing, District Attorney Jim Brazelton has not decided if this is, in fact, a death penalty case. And that is another tragedy in this horribly tragic affair.
An unsigned article on WorldNetDaily.com (April 20, 2003) says, “Already, some pro-choice groups including the National Organization for Women are voicing their opposition to the double-murder charge, saying it could become part of the pro-life lobby’s arsenal.”
Morris County NOW President Mavra Stark told the Daily Record of Parsippany, N.J., “If this is murder, well, then any time a late-term fetus is aborted, they could call it murder.”
Did you ever wonder who they are in wide-reaching statements like that? Well, this time it is obvious – they – are pro-life, anti-death. It is not that we “could” call any late-term abortion murder. We do call it murder. And early-term. And mid-term. Abortion kills a human being, with premeditation.
There is something very ironic about the way this pro-death advocate is twisting. One of abortions greatest weapons – aside from saline solution, scissors, and vacuum pumps – is the ability to turn a phrase. It is not a baby, it is a fetus. It is not abortion, it is a choice. Finally one of them has had the candor, albeit unintentionally to be sure, to link what an abortion doctor does with a street thug with a gun. Both are murders. Sadly, until Roe vs. Wade is overturned, only one of them can be charged with the crime.
Ms. Stark’s weasel statement not withstanding, the death of Lori Peterson’s baby was murder according to California law, just as certainly as was the death of Mrs. Peterson. Conner Peterson was protected as a living human being. Someone killed him.
“There’s something about this that bothers me a little bit,” Stark said.
There is something about this that bothers me more than a little, Ms. Stark. You and your pro-death crowd ignore God’s Word which clearly reveals what the legislatures in Missouri and Minnesota have stated. At the moment of conception, a mother carries inside of her body, an unborn human being. That you reject God’s Law is not all that surprising. You shout “separation of Church and State” and thereby attempt to dismiss the Lord God Almighty as of no consequence.
Wake up, Ms. Stark. Your own state of New Jersey decided, before the national shame of Roe vs. Wade, that “an unborn child [has a] right to life and health [and] is entitled to legal protection even if it is not viable” (Smith vs. Brennan, NJ 1960). And still you say, Ms. Stark, “Was it born, or was it unborn? If it was unborn, then I can’t see charging [Peterson] with a double-murder.”
According to the laws of New Jersey Conner Peterson was murdered, because the life of a human being was taken.
According to laws of Missouri, Minnesota, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and still more states, Conner Peterson was murdered, because the life of a human being was taken.
Now the state laws of those particular states do not matter in the death of Conner Peterson. But the laws of California do. And, like it or not, Ms. Stark, so do the laws of God. And his law calls for the execution of someone found guilty of murder. Or in the case of Laci Peterson and Conner Peterson, a double homicide.
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Copyright 2003 by David Sisler. All Rights Reserved.
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