Cracking down on feticide in Texas

South Dakota isn't the only state cracking down on feticide these days. A couple interesting items are in the Texas news this morning. First, a Palmview man was charged with murder for killing an 18 week old fetus - he kicked the mother in the abdomen.

Juan Antonio Avilez, 42, faces one count of murder, a first-degree felony, and one count of aggravated assault, a second-degree felony…. Both counts stem from a Sept. 10 incident in which Avilez's then-pregnant girlfriend, Leticia Rizo, accuses him of pushing and kicking her in the parking lot of Toys Auto Sales… A report filed by Rizo, 28, states she was meeting with Avilez because she was asking him for money to buy diapers for another child the couple have together. Rizo claims Avilez pulled her by the blouse and pushed her against a vehicle. She states in the report that she told Avilez to stop because she was pregnant but that he pushed her again and kicked her in the abdomen. Rizo later went to the hospital, where she experienced hemorrhaging and her fetus died of the injuries she sustained, according to the police report.

Amazing that the law recognizes that as murder yet if it would have happened in a Planned Parenthood clinic it would have been legal.

Second, a Victoria county Texas judge ruled a woman's womb was a lethal weapon because she used it to kill the five children she had conceived while using cocaine.

“To the extent I have authority to do so I’m going to order surgical sterilization of Tina Flores so she cannot become pregnant,” Judge Juergen “Skipper” Koetter said, after saying 23-year-old woman’s womb, ovaries and uterus qualified as a deadly weapon under the penal code.

Several interesting issues surface here- I'm not thinking the state will be able to force a sterilization. But the state does have an interest in protecting the unborn. No one has the right to live however they want, especially when what they are doing kills an unborn child.