US state may legalize murder of abortion doctors

A bill being considered in the US state of South Dakota would legalize murdering abortion providers, making homicide justifiable if it prevents harms to a fetus.

The law, if passed, would expand the definition of "justifiable homicide" to include any killing with intent to protect a fetus, protecting those who kill doctors who perform abortions. The language in the definition is changed to include killings caused while resisting an attempt to harm a person's unborn child or the unborn child of that person's spouse, partner, parent, or child. If passes, a spouse or family member could kill a doctor attempting to give an abortion to a woman, even if she wanted one. South Dakota already boasts the nation’s strictest abortion laws and coincidently the lowest abortion rate in the US. The state’s legislature tried in 2006 and 2008 to ban abortions, but voters rejected the ban by a mere 12-point margin in both cases.The bill, House Bill 1171, is backed by the state Republicans and has already passed the committee phase with a 9 to 3 vote, Democrats opposed the bill. It will now face a full vote in the state’s House of Representative, which is heavily dominated by the Republican Party. The proposed law has been called “an invitation to murder abortion providers” by critics, who see the bill as a direct violation on a woman’s right to choose in a state already targeting the rights of women.