A young Utah woman recently paid a man $150 to beat her. Why? Because she had hoped that his physical assault on her would kill her baby; she was in her last trimester. Fortunately, the baby survived and was adopted so the child is now safe. The man involved in the case was arrested and is currently in jail for his crime; however, the state judicial system was left with a bit of a legal quagmire since the current laws did not make any provisions for the state to also prosecute the woman involved.

To tackle this issue, a positive new law has been overwhelmingly passed by both houses of the state senate that could go a long way towards protecting the most vulnerable members of our society, the pre-born child. The law would allow law enforcement to arrest and prosecute any woman engaging in reckless behavior which ends in a deliberate and intentional miscarriage.

Of course the bill has some crying foul and looking for the wildest examples on the border of absurdity to discredit the law; however, it is important to note that there is indeed a difference between someone willingly harming their child or engaging in behavior that poses a harm to their child with the full knowledge of what they are doing and a woman who suffers a miscarriage through no fault of her own and no one is suggesting that such women who suffer this tragedy should be arrested, it is merely holding accountable those women who engage in deliberate and malicious actions that harm or kill their children. Reckless endangerment is already an established law around the country and in most cases we understand the need for accountability in such cases and this is merely an extension of that principle. Further, if the law is applied equally to both men and women in cases where it is a man's action that deliberately harms the child then there is no feminist argument to be made. Arguably, this could be a very positive thing for women and could also go a long way towards helping to protect women from violence during their pregnancies if men realize that they will face murder charges for their actions.

The fact that both sides of the legislative body in Salt Lake City, the state's capital, adopted this bill with enthusiastic support speaks volumes about the importance of this bill and how seriously they are taking these cases in Utah, and hopefully other states will follow their lead. The draft of the bill has now made it to the governor's office and is awaiting his signature to put it into force. Some who are opposing the bill are trying to create enough controversy to sway Utah Republican Governor, Gary Herbert from signing the bill; however, it seems quite clear that this is what the state of Utah wants and allowing outside influences with dubious motivations to have a voice in state matters would be rather misguided and could cost him and the state dearly in the long run.

As far as those worried about the feminist side of the issue, it is important to realize that we shall never see true equality or peace until we learn to respect life, all life.