Unanimous Consent Request - S. 1019

UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST—S. 1019

    Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague.

    I am sorry we are not able to bring this bill up today. I hope that what I hear from my colleague from Nevada is encouraging words and that we will be able to get an agreement shortly.

    Let me say, as my colleague from Tennessee, the majority leader, has pointed out, that now in over half the States in the Union, if you commit a crime of violence against a pregnant woman and her unborn baby dies, you can be punished for the violence against both the mother and the unborn child.

    But the other side of that story is, in roughly half of the States in the Union, they do not have this law, and in the Federal Government we do not have this law. We have been trying to rectify this since 1999, which is the first time I introduced this bill.

    My colleague LINDSEY GRAHAM, who is going to speak in a moment, was the leader in the House of Representatives when they passed the bill several times in the past. So, this is not something that just came up in the last few months.

    Let me make a couple comments before I yield to my colleague. First, this has nothing to do with abortion. We have a very specific exception in this bill in very definite language that states it has nothing to do with abortion. You can't write it any clearer or any plainer than we have written the language.

    Second, let me give an example that will show the compelling need for this bill. Even though over half of the States now have very similar legislation, consider this situation. Assume that an airman stationed at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware attacks a pregnant woman—his girlfriend, wife, someone he doesn't know. Assume his intent is to terminate her pregnancy and he savagely beats her with a specific intent to terminate that pregnancy. Assume that, in fact, that is what happens, and the child does, in fact, die. Under current Federal law, the only thing the Federal prosecutor could charge him with is the assault against the mother. The reason for that is there is no Federal law such as the one we are talking about, and Delaware does not have a law.

    That is not right. That is not justice. We need to say that is not right. We need to close that loophole because everyone in this country, I believe, recognizes there is a second victim, and it is not just, it is not right that that child should not be recognized as a victim. And there is no one in this country who believes that man should walk away with the only charge against him being a simple assault.

    We had a case in Ohio a few years ago that turned out differently. It was a tragic case, but at least justice was done. It was the exact same case—a man was stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, an airman, had a pregnant girlfriend. He decided that he was going to end her pregnancy. He savagely beat her, terminated her pregnancy. She aborted and lost her child. The Federal prosecutor gets the tragic case and finds out there is no Federal law that says he can charge. He looks around and says: What am I going to do? Fortunately, Ohio had just passed a law similar to this. So under the Federal assimilative law he was able to assimilate the Ohio law into the Federal code and was able to charge him with the murder of the child. But in those States, those 23 States that do not have that, if that Air Force base had been located in any of those States, justice would not have been done.

    What we are saying is, it is time for there to be justice. It is time for there to be a Federal law. This law simply recognizes what every person in this country understands that there is, in fact, a second victim.

    I yield back to the majority leader.