RALEIGH
Jenna Nielsen was eight months pregnant when she was stabbed to death on June 14, 2007.
But if police arrest her killer, only one murder charge can be filed, not two.
In most states and in federal cases, her death and the death of her unborn son -- who was going to be named Ethen -- would count as separate crimes.
But not in North Carolina.
"It's just gut-wrenching to find out that not only did you lose your daughter and your grandchild, but that your grandchild is not even recognized," Nielsen's father, Kevin Blaine of Raleigh, said last week.
Numerous attempts to change the law have failed. Democrats who control the General Assembly have not allowed hearings on any bills that would recognize unborn victims.
The issue has become so firmly linked with abortion politics that polarized interest groups have scuttled the efforts of state legislators who say they want to take a middle-ground approach.
Abortion-rights groups oppose any bill that either explicitly or implicitly recognizes a fetus as a separate victim of a crime.
Anti-abortion groups oppose any bill that does not establish a fetus as a full, living person throughout all nine months of pregnancy.
Two bills filed this year in the General Assembly have angered both factions -- even as the bills' sponsors insist that the bills have nothing to do with abortion.
Leading the movement to pass an unborn-victims' law are two Republican legislators from Forsyth County: Rep. Dale Folwell and Sen. Pete Brunstetter.
Both oppose abortion and say they believe that life begins at conception. But this issue, they say, is not about reproductive rights -- it's about punishing criminals who kill pregnant women.
"These women have chosen to keep their children," Folwell said. "That choice was not taken away from them by a legislator but by a murderer."
Opposition from both sides
Thirty-six states -- including every state in the Southeast except North Carolina -- have laws that partially or fully recognize unborn victims of crimes. Congress also passed its own law in 2004 after the highly publicized murder of Laci Peterson, the California woman who was pregnant with her son, Conner.
Republicans have been trying to pass such a law in North Carolina for years, repeatedly filing bills that never get a hearing.
This year, the landscape is slightly different because an unborn-victims' bill has been filed by a powerful Democratic legislator, Sen. Doug Berger of Franklin County.
Berger's bill would ensure that someone who injures or kills a pregnant woman would be charged with two felonies. It would apply only to cases in which the woman was more than 20 weeks pregnant, and only if the defendant knew that the woman was pregnant. It contains language to ensure that it would not affect legal abortions.
Folwell and Brunstetter would prefer that all stages of pregnancy be included, not just after 20 weeks, and Brunstetter has filed a separate bill that would do that.
They also support Berger's bill because it would at least codify some level of recognition of unborn victims. They realize that if any bill has a chance of passage, it's that one.
Berger said that his bill may get a hearing this year -- but only if Republicans can promise the Democratic leadership beforehand that they won't offer any amendments trying to make the bill more extreme.
"There can't be any amendments that pull this into a debate between the right-to-life movement and the pro-choice movement," Berger said.
It's unclear if the Republican caucus could, or would, make such a guarantee.
But in reality, Berger's fear has already been realized. His bill is drawing fire from both sides of the abortion debate.
Liberal groups, including Planned Parenthood and the N.C. Domestic Violence Coalition, oppose the bill. They say that it won't reduce domestic violence, and they say that the focus of a prosecution for a crime against a pregnant woman should remain on the woman, not the fetus.
Melissa Reed, the vice president for public policy of Planned Parenthood Health Systems, which covers 75 counties in North Carolina, said that when a pregnant woman is murdered, there is one victim, not two.
"It creates a double jeopardy," Reed said. "It's a single blow, and you're being charged for two crimes."
She also worries that it could chip away at abortion rights.
Opponents also note that North Carolina already has a law that allows stiffer penalties for people who commit a crime against a pregnant woman. But that law in no way recognizes the fetus as a victim, and it is very rarely used by prosecutors.
Anti-abortion advocates have an entirely different problem with the proposed legislation. They say they believe that it does not go far enough in recognizing the unborn.
The two bills that have been filed so far this year do not explicitly name the fetus as a separate living victim; they simply say that anyone who kills or injures a pregnant woman should be charged with two separate crimes.
"It's not recognizing two victims -- it's only recognizing two charges. And we want the unborn child named as a victim," said Barbara Holt, the president of N.C. Right to Life.
Another Republican legislator, Rep. Mark Hilton of Catawba County, is planning to file a third unborn-victims bill that would do that.
It has almost no chance of passing, but Holt opposes the more pragmatic strategy taken by Brunstetter and Folwell.
"I understand their goal, and I understand their thinking on this matter, but we see this as moving away from what they're trying to do," Holt said, "because if (the more moderate bill) passes, people are going to think this matter is settled."
Brunstetter said that he and the other supporters of legislation for unborn victims have not found a good way to extricate the issue from the polarizing issue of abortion politics. That endangers the bill's chance of getting a full hearing in a legislature controlled by Democrats who often shy away from controversial, politically polarizing bills.
"I think that they're getting significant grief from the interest groups that are a considerable part of their base, just like we're getting grief from the interest groups in our base," Brunstetter said.
Feeling invisible
For the families of pregnant women who were killed, frozen politics feels like frozen justice.
"I'm not Republican, I'm not Democrat. I'm not pro-life, I'm not pro-choice," said Kevin Blaine, the father of Jenna Nielsen, who was 22 when she died. "I don't want to team up with any side. What I want to do is team up with everybody."
Blaine wants future victims' families to get a sense of justice that he feels is not available to him.
He is not alone.
A string of high-profile killings of pregnant women in North Carolina has brought national attention to the state and its lack of an unborn-victims law.
There was Maria Lauterbach, a U.S. Marine at Camp Lejeune who was eight months pregnant when she was killed in 2007. The man accused of killing her, Cesar Laurean, fled to Mexico and is currently awaiting extradition.
There was Michelle Young, who was five months pregnant when she was beaten to death in her Raleigh home in 2006. Her 2-year-old daughter, Cassidy, was home at the time but was left unharmed. Cassidy stepped in Young's blood and left tiny, bloody footprints all over the house before Young's body was found. No one has been charged in the crime.
There was Roselyn Dethrow, who was killed in Winston-Salem in 2002 by her boyfriend, Ricky Royster, because Dethrow was pregnant and Royster did not want her to have the baby. Royster was sentenced to life in prison.
"When we cannot get a hearing, it makes this issue, and these advocates, feel invisible," Folwell said.
Blaine chose a different word: "heart-wrenching."
Three years ago, his family and daughter Jenna's family all moved from Utah to North Carolina. Jenna and her husband already had two sons; Ethen would have been their third.
Blaine recalled how much his daughter loved the warm weather of North Carolina and how much she was enjoying life here.
"She just loved this state, and was just so thankful that we as a family came together," Blaine said. "In less than a year, it was completely destroyed."
■ James Romoser can be reached at 919-210-6794 or at jromoser@wsjournal.com.
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