{"id":29881,"date":"2023-11-06T21:54:19","date_gmt":"2023-11-06T21:54:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cincinnatirighttolife.org\/?p=29881"},"modified":"2024-03-01T18:25:05","modified_gmt":"2024-03-01T18:25:05","slug":"what-does-texas-have-to-do-with-ohio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cincinnatirighttolife.org\/what-does-texas-have-to-do-with-ohio\/","title":{"rendered":"What does Texas have to do with Ohio?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By: John M. Grondelski, Ph.D., originally published in The Catholic World Report<\/a>, November 4, 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Texas counted the unborn Carlin Holcombe as a victim of the November 5, 2017, mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Under Ohio\u2019s Issue One, would Carlin be a victim?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you remember Sutherland Springs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe not. We\u2019ve grown so inured to atrocities that a six-year-old mass shooting probably long ago receded out of most people\u2019s memories\u2014if they don\u2019t live in its vicinity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To recap: six years ago, on Sunday, November 5, 2017, a man entered the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas<\/a>, shooting and wounding 22 people, shooting and killing 26 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or was it 25?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the victims of the shooting spree was the Holcombe Family. John (60), Karla (58), Marc (36), Crystal (36), and Noah (1).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except that Crystal<\/a> was eight months pregnant. Her unborn child even had a name: Carlin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Texas counted Carlin as a victim and said 26 people died that Sunday in Sutherland Springs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, God forbid this barbarity take place again, in Ohio. But let\u2019s engage in a thought experiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, November 7, 2023, Ohio voters will decide Issue One<\/a>, which declares abortion through birth is a constitutionally protected \u201cchoice\u201d in Ohio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Issue One, would Carlin be a victim?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who knows?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Issue One declares that \u201cevery individual has the right to make and carry out one\u2019s own reproductive decisions, including \u2026 abortion.\u201d Now, when it comes to the unborn child, is he a \u201cperson\u201d or not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Issue One is unclear. Is he a \u201cperson\u201d whose personhood doesn\u2019t count, or at least is preempted by the decision to have an abortion? Or is he not a person at all? Is he a never a person, sometimes a person, or always a person? Issue One doesn\u2019t answer that question, at least clearly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, if a shooter shot Carlin Holcombe in Cincinnati, could Ohio charge him with murder?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can\u2019t be killed if you\u2019re not a person. And, when it comes to the abortion decision, you\u2019re not a person (at least not a person who counts) under Issue One.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But could you be a person for a murder charge? Crystal Holcombe clearly had made a \u201creproductive decision\u201d to bear a child. So, does that make Carlin a person before birth? Did he \u201cbecome\u201d a person for legal purposes because his mother wanted to carry him to term? Or would Carlin remain a \u201cnon-person\u201d until birth, in which case he could not be included among the victims of the mass shooting?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, under the logic of Issue One, Carlin is sometimes a \u201cperson\u201d (if his mother wants him) and sometimes not (if she doesn\u2019t)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does anybody think peek-a-boo personhood, manifesting and vanishing, is an inconsistency?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carlin Holcombe was a month away from birth. Had the child not been shot, the child would probably have been born normally. The child was viable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or was the child?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s engage in a further thought experiment. Let\u2019s say a child like Carlin had been injured, rather than killed, by the shooter. Let\u2019s say the bullet caused some significant injury, paralysis or a brain injury. What if Carlin\u2019s mother survived and, finding out her baby was injured, decided she did not want to raise a handicapped child and so decides on an abortion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Issue One, she could. Arguably, given the extremely elastic definition of \u201chealth\u201d that has been applied in abortion cases since Doe v. Bolton, <\/em>having to raise a paraplegic child might be deemed inimical to maternal \u201chealth,\u201d thus waiving the ostensible ban on post-viability abortions to which Issue One gives lip service. So, the mother could have an abortion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, could the child be a victim for purposes of the state\u2019s prosecution of the shooter, but not a person for purposes of his mother\u2019s abortion decision?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last question: Is what the child suffered at the hands of the shooter an \u201cinjury\u201d or \u201cdamages?\u201d Persons suffer injuries; property suffers damages. Can Carlin be \u201cinjured\u201d by being shot for purposes of compensation from the shooter\u2019s estate but incapable of \u201cinjury\u201d in terms of the decision to terminate the pregnancy that ends Carlin\u2019s existence?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or did the shooting only result in \u201cdamages,\u201d in which case the damaged fetus is essentially chattel property?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Americans are concerned not just about mass shootings but a general rising crime wave. More and more Americans, especially in urban areas, are afraid outdoors. In that environment, crimes involving pregnant women and their unborn children cannot be excluded. Neither, then, can the criminal and tort aspects of those situations be ignored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many Americans are ambivalent about abortion. They instinctually feel uneasy about abortion-on-demand, but also hesitate to draw out the full implications of that reserve. The result is this kind of incoherence: can somebody be a \u201cperson\u201d only sometimes? Is personhood a transitory, \u201cit depends\u201d quality?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or do we recognize the inconsistencies such thinking nevertheless enmeshes us in, with real and serious legal consequences?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because, six years after Sutherland Springs, we still have to answer the question: did 25 people die that day \u2026 or 26?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John M. Grondelski (Ph.D., Fordham) was former associate dean of the School of Theology, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: John M. Grondelski, Ph.D., originally published in The Catholic World Report, November 4, 2023 Texas counted the unborn Carlin Holcombe as a victim of the November 5, 2017, mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Under Ohio\u2019s Issue One, would Carlin be a victim? Do you remember Sutherland Springs? Maybe…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29882,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat does Texas have to do with Ohio? - Cincinnati Right to Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cincinnatirighttolife.org\/what-does-texas-have-to-do-with-ohio\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What does Texas have to do with Ohio? - Cincinnati Right to Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By: John M. Grondelski, Ph.D., originally published in The Catholic World Report, November 4, 2023 Texas counted the unborn Carlin Holcombe as a victim of the November 5, 2017, mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Under Ohio\u2019s Issue One, would Carlin be a victim? Do you remember Sutherland Springs? 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