Honestly, treating the fetus as a person and charging her for its death is no less fucking stupid than charging someone who kills a pregnant woman w/ two counts of homicide, which many/most states seem to do. Either the fetus is a person or it isn't, you can't have it both ways.
Agreed.
Even if this happened as stipulated, it still sets terrible precedent. If a mother can be charged for what happens to her fetus, how far does that logic carry? Can we charge her with assault if she has a drink while pregnant? Reckless endangerment if she goes partying in a rough area of town? Is she looking at a murder or manslaughter charge if she fails to get adequate medical attention for pregnancy complications and miscarries as a result?
I don't like where this road leads. A fetus is part of the mother's body; until it can live independent of her, we should not be treating it as a separate entity.
Pretty much. This is exactly where Alabama's new abortion laws lead: holding the mother criminally responsible for the death of her fetus if it's deemed she endangered it. This case seems straightforward enough, and not necessarily objectionable on its own, but it sets a very, very dangerous precedent. As mentioned above, this exact logic can be used to charge a pregnant woman with manslaughter if she's found at fault in a car accident that causes a miscarriage. Heck, depending on where they decide to draw the line for "endangerment," she could be charged for even taking the risk of getting into the car in the first place instead of staying safe at home for the entire pregnancy.
If this case is considered felony murder, then it means that literally every miscarriage has to be investigated as a wrongful death, with the potential for manslaughter or murder charges to be applied to the mother. This is the price of criminalizing abortions.
Well, I said it was the same logic as, and similar to, felony murder.
The premise of felony murder is that it's applied when someone dies during the attempt/execution of some felony offense, even if it's nothing on the level of murder/homicide.
I don't know if the assault/battery charge she's facing is considered a felony or not. So it may not be a literal case of felony murder. Just saying, regardless if it is or not, it functions on the same reasoning and is wrong for the same reasons.