'pro-life' bill to legalize murder spreads to Iowa and Nebraska

[JBeukema]

Two bills sponsored by Iowa House Republicans could have significant public safety consequences, and perhaps the most unnerving of those potential outcomes would be the justifiable use of deadly force against abortion or family planning providers.
When the two pieces of legislation are combined they create a situation where a fertilized egg would be considered a person, and allow for the public execution of those who would threaten such a person.
If passed into law, the two bills — House File 7 and House File 153 — would offer an unprecedented defense opportunity to individuals who stand accused of killing such providers, according to a former prosecutor and law professor at the University of Kansas, and are something that might have very well led to a different outcome in the Kansas trial of the man who shot Dr. George Tiller in a church foyer.
Melanie D. Wilson, associate professor of law at the University of Kansas, closely followed the trial of Scott Roeder, the man convicted of murdering Tiller. Roeder, at the urging of Iowa anti-abortion activist and former GOP legislative candidate Dave Leach, attempted to use the necessity defense, which says it is permissible to commit a crime if it stops a greater harm. The judge in the case refused to allow Roeder to use that defense.
“When [Roeder] presented the necessity defense, he failed because the legislature had basically already decided the abortion issue,” Wilson said. “So, as long as Tiller was performing legal abortion, [Roeder], as a defendant, didn’t get to re-decide the case [of abortion's legal status]. Just as a matter of law, the judge wouldn’t allow that argument.”
Currently, abortion is also settled law in Iowa. But House File 153, sponsored by 28 Republicans, challenges it.

Iowa bills open door for use of deadly force to protect the unborn | Iowa Independent