For the week of May 14 - 20, 2003

All the world turns on an image

Commentary by ADAM TANOUS

---

The image most of us have of Laci Peterson, a woman who disappeared on Christmas Eve and was found murdered months later, is of her winning smile. A young woman pictured in the joyous flush of pregnancy, Peterson could not be a more sympathetic victim of a horrible crime. Much has turned on that photo first provided to the media.

At the time of her disappearance, Peterson’s family was no doubt called on to make a thousand little decisions like providing a photo of Laci to the police. Few of those decisions likely had the effect the choice of that photo had on not only the level of national exposure of the case, but also on the subsequent political debate it has generated.

One might wonder how many women went missing nationwide the week Peterson disappeared. I would bet there were many. I would also bet that many of them were ultimately murdered.

The same question could be asked about the Elizabeth Smart case. No doubt there were many children abducted or missing at the same time the Utah girl disappeared. But again, there was a compelling video. It was the short clip of the cute, blonde child playing on the beach. Instantly she was a fixture on the national news.

In both cases, the overwhelming media exposure had everything to do with apprehending a suspect. And the overwhelming media exposure had everything to do with the images of the victims.

The one generalization it is safe to make about the media is that it exerts tremendous pressure on cases like those of Peterson and Smart. With that kind of a spotlight on them, police departments suddenly materialize all sorts of resources. Cases tend to get solved, one way or another, when everybody is watching.

Which brings us back to the image. Everything hinges on it. If the victim of a terrible crime is a made-for-TV victim—attractive, white, young, or compelling in some other way like being pregnant—that case is going to end up on the evening news. The point is not to begrudge the exposure those families get for their cases, but rather to realize there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of victims less compelling for the TV market who are out there missing or dead. Our justice system does its best to apply itself fairly across the spectrum of the population, but the fact remains there are dramatic inequities created by other forces such as evening news editors. These editors are constantly looking for compelling narratives and images—like Peterson and Smart—to reflect a broader picture of America. Decisions by editors, decisions by families as to what photos to provide the police or media, what the victim looks like all contribute to an element of capriciousness in our justice system.

Another factor to consider is that more often than not the compelling victim is used for political purposes. After Smart was returned to her home, her father pushed legislators for a national child abduction alert network. Remarkably, an issue that had been hotly debated for years with no clear consensus emerging, suddenly became law two weeks ago. While I think the alert system may in fact be a good idea, I’m sure the bill’s opponents had reasonable arguments that were brushed aside in the frenzy to jump on the Smart media train. No one seemed to notice or consider that the Utah girl was found without such a national system, and so the Smart endorsement had no real probative value to the debate.

Perhaps a more distressing example of political opportunism is the attempt by anti-abortion groups and the White House to employ the Peterson tragedy in pushing through a federal statute called the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. In essence the act would allow a violent crime against a pregnant woman to be considered as crimes against two people.

At the state level, 26 states, including Idaho, have adopted similar measures; 24 have not. California has such a measure and, under it, Scott Peterson has been charged with two murders—those of Laci and her fetus. The Idaho statute, which went into effect 11 months ago, defines murder as "the unlawful killing of a human being including, but not limited to, a human embryo or fetus." The law does not apply to individuals who obtain or provide elective abortions.

Why should anyone care?

Because it is a fairly transparent effort to get at a woman’s right to an abortion. If a fetus can be considered a victim of a crime, independently of the mother carrying it, then logically it must have certain, independent legal rights, whether or not the fetus is viable outside the womb. Viability outside the womb is, of course, the legal standard the Supreme Court established in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The court ruled that a woman has a constitutional right to an abortion before the fetus is viable outside the womb.

The Idaho law was initiated and supported by Idaho Chooses Life, an antiabortion group. David Ripley, executive director of the group, said at the time in the Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report the statute "bolsters the antiabortion movement’s argument against … Roe v. Wade by creat(ing) legal tension within the court structure" regarding fetal personhood … It would be a huge victory" if antiabortion groups were able to "use fetal homicide laws to overturn Roe v. Wade."

The debate about abortion will likely never end, because the fundamental hurdle to coming to an amicable consensus on abortion is a conceptual one. The status of a fetus and its mother at any given point in time cannot be readily defined. Is it a fetus or a person at week 12? Is it an independent being at week 30? Where does the fetus end and the mother begin? The answers to those questions may be philosophical, biological, or both, and certainly are not universal.

One way out of this conundrum is to think of a fetus as both a life and a non-life, something that is in two coexisting states. Coexisting states are not something we are comfortable with—we crave definition. It is analogous to the debate over quantum mechanics at the beginning of the 20^th century. How could matter be both a wave and a particle? How could an electron zinging around a proton be at two places simultaneously?

It took revolutionary thinking to cross the span between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics, which we now know to be the truer model. No less will be required to move beyond the abortion chasm before us.

 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.