Life Links 12/16/09

In Florida, a naval officer has been indicted for the death of a pregnant woman. Zachary Littleton allegedly killed Samira Watkins after she refused to have an abortion.


This is truly odd. A woman in Virginia allegedly killed her newborn child by suffocation but authorities say they can’t charge her with a crime because the child was still attached to the mother via the umbilical cord.

“In the state of Virginia as long as the umbilical cord is attached and the placenta is still in the mother, if the baby comes out alive the mother can do whatever she wants to with that baby to kill it,“ said Investigator Tracy Emerson. “She could shoot the baby, stab the baby. As long as it’s still attached to her in some form by umbilical cord or something it’s no crime in the state of Virginia.“

The Campbell County Sheriff’s Office and Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office worked unsuccessfully to get the law changed after another baby died in the county in a similar case. Emerson said they asked two delegates and one state senator to take the issue up in the General Assembly. He says the three lawmakers refused because they felt the issue was too close to the abortion issue….

Emerson said the woman knew she was pregnant and had received prenatal care. He said the baby was full-term, due Tuesday. The medical examiner says the baby was born healthy. An autopsy is being performed. The baby’s body will then be released to the family.

A man from Eugene, Oregon has admitted to making a threatening phone call to a Planned Parenthood affiliate in December of 2008.

Freeman's threatening voicemail said in part, "I'm going to burn your abortion clinic down because you are a baby killer and you hate babies. Go back to Portland and get sick there... Or I'm going to blow your (expletive) abortion clinic up."

Planned Parenthood may not have been Freeman's only target, though he faces jail time for that single threat.

Authorities say Freeman may have made other threatening calls to a PeaceHealth Medical Group doctor and to Eugene's Masonic Lodge as well as to the home of former University of Oregon President Dave Frohnmayer.

The court recognizes Freeman as disabled partly because of brain injuries he sustained when he was struck by a train in 2005.