March 30, 2004, 9:03 a.m.
The Invisible Human Victim
The Washington Post & the Senate recognize two murders.

By Douglas Johnson

At the heart of the March 25 U.S. Senate debate over the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (H.R. 1997) was one fundamental question: When a criminal violently attacks a pregnant woman, has he claimed one victim, or two?

The bill amends federal and military law to establish that such a crime has two victims — the mother, of course, but now also the "child in utero," defined as "a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb."

Opponents of the bill rallied behind a substitute amendment, sponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), to codify the doctrine that such crimes have only a single victim (but nevertheless, they argued, the attacker should be subject to additional penalties for interfering with the woman's pregnancy — even if she died in the attack).

During the debate, Senator Sam Brownback (R., Kan.) urged his Senate colleagues to go outside the Senate chamber, to the Senate Reception Room, to meet women and men who had come to Washington to tell the terrible stories of the loved ones — born and unborn — whom their families had lost in violent crimes.

Brownback went on to describe the cases of five of the visiting families. As he did so, he showed photos of the victims, enlarged to poster size, clearly visible to viewers on C-SPAN. One photo, already widely circulated, showed Tracy Marciniak Seavers holding her murdered son Zachariah at his funeral. Another showed Christina Alberts and her unborn daughter Ashley Nichole, laying side by side in an open coffin at their funeral in West Virginia.

A third poster showed two photos printed side by side — on the left, a smiling young woman named Heather Fliegelman, and on the right, the body of her unborn son Jonah. The photo of Jonah was taken at the autopsy after the brutal crime that killed them both in Bangor, Maine, last year.

Less than an hour later, the Senate cast its long-awaited judgment. Forty-nine senators voted for the single-victim substitute — and 50 voted against it. In the judgment of the Senate, there are indeed two victims. H.R. 1997 was later passed on a 61-38 vote, as 12 senators who had voted for the unsuccessful single-victim amendment nevertheless agreed to make the two-victim doctrine federal law.

Shortly after the critical vote on the Feinstein Substitute, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R., Tenn.) and some of the other leading congressional proponents of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act held a press conference in the U.S. Capitol.

After remarks by the lawmakers, each of the visiting family members spoke briefly of their slain loved ones. As each spoke, the posters were displayed to the representatives of the news media on an easel next to the speakers.

The next day, a photograph appeared on page four of the Washington Post, alongside the paper's report on the Senate vote. (The same photo and caption appeared in the Post's Internet edition.) The photo showed Senator Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) and Rep. Melissa Hart (R., Pa.) looking on as Cynthia Warner spoke about the killing of her daughter and unborn grandson, Heather and Jonah. The photo also showed the adjacent photo poster — but only the side showing Heather. The right side of the poster — the side that contained the photo of Jonah — was cut off.

It happened that the photo caption mistakenly identified Warner as a different woman and Graham as a different senator, so I sent an e-mail to a Post editor informing them of those errors. In response, I received a phone call from the Post photo editor, Michael duCille, who told me that the paper would reprint the photo the next day with the correct information.

I also took the opportunity to point out that Jonah's half of the poster was missing. This was noteworthy, I said, since the press conference had focused specifically on the family members' recognition that such crimes have two victims, while opponents of the bill insist that there is only one. DuCille replied that the "unborn child" had been deliberately cropped out "for editorial reasons."

"What were the editorial reasons?," I asked. DuCille replied that it is Post policy — occasionally set aside but usually observed — not to show pictures of dead bodies.

I asked if this ban applied only to human bodies. DuCille replied in the affirmative — the policy applied only to dead humans.

Since duCille had already told me that the paper was going to reprint the photo, I asked him to revisit the decision to remove Jonah with the responsible editor. DuCille said that he would convey my request to Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. A short time later, duCille called back to say that Downie had reaffirmed the original decision not to show the body.

"We just avoid that at all costs," said duCille.

The next day, the photo appeared in the paper again, this time with the correct identifications in the caption, but with Jonah again cropped out.

Because the state of Maine does not have an unborn-victims law, the man who was convicted of the murder of Heather Fliegelman faced no charge on behalf of Jonah. But perhaps Jonah's grandmother, his great aunt Kristin Eckmann (also present), and his other family members can take some comfort that 50 United States senators voted to recognize Jonah as a human victim — and so too, in his way, did the executive editor of the Washington Post.

— Douglas Johnson is legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee.

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