Aftershocks from Thursday's passage of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act by the U.S. Senate have shaken pro-life and pro-choice activists in this state and affected the campaign for the seat of Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis.
The act makes harming a fetus a separate crime under federal law and was hailed by President Bush as intuitive.
\Pregnant women who have been harmed by violence, and their families, know that there are two victims-the mother and the unborn child,"" he said in a statement.
Advocates on both sides lobbied the Senate's vote. NARAL Pro-Choice America, for instance, sent more than 130,000 petitions against the bill to senators.
Courtney Emery, spokesperson for the Wisconsin branch of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said the move was the first step in a plot to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision approving the right to perform an abortion. Emery explained that the bill acted as a slippery slope by giving personal, legal rights to a fetus.
""It was specifically crafted to assign personhood to embryos and fetuses under law. ... It does absolutely nothing to address the very pervasive problem of violence [against] women in our culture,"" Emery said.
UW-Madison sophomore Meg Seelen of Students Defending Life, an organization of St. Paul's University Catholic Center, said that position was ludicrous because the unborn already have property rights under the law, including the right to be included in a will.
""[A fetus] is certainly a person. I don't know what else they'd consider it to be,"" Seelen said.
Seelen also said the act was meaningful for women.
""It's also important for the mother [to] recognize the loss she experienced. It's a step forward for women's rights,"" she said.
The bill has already become a contentious issue in Feingold's campaign for re-election. Feingold voted against the act, as did Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis.
Within hours of the Senate vote, Feingold's three Republican opponents issued press releases decrying his position.
""[Feingold's] actions today are revolting and nothing more than continued pandering to the most radical left-wing of the Democratic Party from a politician who is severely out of touch with the common-sense values shared by the vast majority of Wisconsin voters,"" State Sen. Bob Welch, R-Town of Marion, said in a statement.
Still, voters in the swing state of Wisconsin are divided, according to Emery.
Though she called the ""anti-choice"" movement in Wisconsin ""very vocal ... and well-funded,"" she said she believed ""the majority of Wisconsinites are pro-choice.""
UW medical student Brianna Cowan said the bill's motivations may have been worthwhile, but the results would be controversial.
""The initial impulse behind the bill is protection of their wanted, unborn children and I think everyone can agree that's a noble ideal,"" she said. ""The economic and political implications are where all the controversy is.\
