The murder of pregnant Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach and her unborn child, brings to the surface both the unfortunate phenomenon of the murder of pregnant women and the societal complacence that makes such tragedies commonplace. I was shocked to learn that the leading cause of death among pregnant women in the United States is murder. Horrifying.
A study published in the March 2005 edition of the American Journal of Public Health found that homicide was a leading cause of death among pregnant women in the United States between 1991 and 1999. Data taken from the Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the pregnancy-associated homicide ratio was 1.7 per 100,000 live births.
A 2001 study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association said 20 percent of Maryland women who died during pregnancy were murdered. Researchers found the same trend in New York from 1987-1991 and in the Chicago area from 1986-1989. According to the CDC, approximately 324,000 pregnant women are hurt by an intimate partner or former partner each year.
In this particular case, the suspect, whom Lance Cpl. Lauterbach had accused recently of raping her, is another Marine, a man of honor presumably. Semper Fi is what we expect. Not here.
In law the man is presumed innocent. In any event, it is ironic that in this case the military, sworn to protect the our country and especially the vulnerable, is in the predicament of explaining how a woman who cried for help is now dead. I don’t suppose this will raise the issue of the way in which women have been integrated into all facets of public life, as if they were men, has, indeed, made the modern woman just “one of the boys.”
Even the National Organization of Women has acknowledged the statistics concerning the rate of death by murder relative to pregnant women. Of course, the vulnerability of pregnant women is best addressed, in their view, by the availability of abortion. I have not seen a breakdown of the statistics, but I would be interested. The article linked to above, suggests that pregnant women might die just as often at the hands of other women as at the hands of men, but I don’t think so. Would it be so unreasonable to follow the hunch that they and their child are murdered most often because the pregnancy is unwanted by the man?
We have ourselves one big problem, and our arrogant social engineers are still not likely to see the obvious.
Mary Victrix 
I heard about this yesterday. It seems like there have been a few *headline* cases of murdered pregnant women over the past few years but I didn’t realize that it was the number one cause of death for these women. There were even a few cases of husbands who had committed these unthinkable crimes. Sometimes I think that the real problem goes back to the acceptance of birth control which made children something that comes only when properly calculated. Therefore, pre-marital and extra-marital relations weren’t necessary to avoid because they didn’t have to *include* the possibility of a child. And, of course, if that child happened to come anyway, then there was abortion quick on the heels. So, if the mother chooses to keep this baby, then naturally when the life of the child wasn’t important, the life of the mother bearing this child becomes less important as well. ERASE IT ALL … permanently. The men get to *do as they please* without anything making them feel committed…. even if the woman they’re using is their own wife!
But, then at other times, I can’t help but wonder if these problems have always been with us. Clearly there is much documentation in history and literature of pre-marital unions, extra-marital affairs and rape. But, back then, it was basically the man’s word against the woman’s word so that many men were probably able to walk away. Today, due to DNA sampling, the media, etc … it’s become far more difficult for men to *hide*, if you will .. they can’t just deny it was them! Thus, out of desperation and total fear, he makes the decision to kill the woman and child in hopes to be able to continue his life the way he plans … without commitments. In marriage, way back when, the child was an obvious result of their union so I doubt you had as much murdering of your own wife for that particular reason. That phenomena I’m quite sure is the result of our non-committal, pro-abortion culture of the day. So, if this is the case where this has always been an issue since the beginning of time, then maybe it’s good that it all gets ripped wide open.
What I’d like to see is that these cases where the man is now charged with murdering TWO people (thus agreeing that the baby inutero was human afterall) eventually is able to reverse R v. W. That would be God turning something horrible into something amazing as only He can do. We can only pray.
-Jen A.
Jennifer,
There is nothing new under the son. Abortion and contraception, however, have never been institutionalized and universalized as they are now. The irony is that whether we are dealing with the old misogyny of women without rites, or the new misogyny of women hating themselves, women themselves are always the biggest losers.