Deacon Keith A. Fournier
© Third Millennium, LLC
Catholic Online

I awakened to sad news. Tammy Skinner, the Suffolk, Virginia mother who killed her own child, was set free. I decided I had to write. I want to tell the world what has occurred. Baby Girl Skinner must not have died in vain. I will let the facts speak for themselves.

On May 8, 2006 Tammy Skinner, 22, stood before the Judge in Suffolk, Virginia. This court hearing was the culmination of events that occurred on Feb. 23, 2006. On that fateful day, Tammy called police from a car dealership. She told them that she had been shot in the stomach and pushed out of her car. Police found blood in Skinner’s red compact car, and a gun. Tammy was carrying a baby within her; a little girl who was to be delivered that very day.

Later, Tammy changed her story, claiming that the father of Baby Girl Skinner had killed her. Finally, she told the authorities the truth - she had shot herself in the abdomen with the intention of killing Baby Girl Skinner. She did this on the very day she was to have delivered her baby girl. Tammy has two other daughters. However, she did not want this one. So she killed her.

Tammy Skinner was charged with inducing an abortion. However, since she actually fired the gun herself, General District Court Judge James A. Moore decided that she could not be charged with inducing a miscarriage or abortion. After all, abortion is legal in America, throughout all nine months, under the holding of Roe v. Wade. Her lawyer, known for his “civil rights” work- and for his representation of the People for the Ethical treatment of Animals (PETA)- argued at a preliminary hearing that the charge of inducing an abortion or miscarriage is intended for use against a third party.

He contended that the Statute did not apply to a mother who shoots herself to commit an abortion. “A strange irony for a civil rights lawyer”, you might ask? Well, in America, Baby Girl Skinner had no civil rights. Mother Tammy has them all. She also has a “right” to kill. Given the state of the law in this nation, the other person involved, the one who died as a direct result of the gunshot, Baby Girl Skinner, had no voice and no legal standing. She, along with all children in the first home of the human race, their mothers’ womb, had been reduced to the status of property.

The charge of inducing an abortion was dismissed. That’s not all. Tammy Skinner had also been charged with using a firearm in a felony. However, that charge was not prosecuted. Under Virginia law, it must occur during the commission of a specific felony. Tammy’s intentional killing of Baby Girl Skinner was not a felony. It was viewed as an extension of her “right” to take the life of her own child, as long as the baby was still in the womb. However, there was a prosecution. She was convicted of filing a false police report. General District Judge James A. Moore Jr. ordered her to pay the cost of the police investigation, $750. If someone else had shot Tammy Skinner and her daughter on the day she was to have delivered Baby Girl Skinner, they could have been prosecuted. However, Virginia’s fetal homicide law doesn’t seem to apply to the mother. It refers to killing “the fetus of another.” Prosecutors might still ask a grand jury for a charge. However, one of the Commonwealth’s Attorneys, Phil Ferguson, said: “We are dealing with a woman who, by her own hands, killed her child on the day of its birth…This was a nine-month fetus, clearly in the realm of viability. Whether it meets legal tests to constitute criminal conduct – we’re reviewing and exploring our options.”

Tammy Skinner’s attorney, who apparently recognizes the civil rights of animals and fish, did not concern himself with the preeminent natural and human rights of Baby Girl Skinner. He said he was happy with the decision stating: “It was clear to me, and clear to the judge, that you cannot convict when an expectant mother does this,”

Last year, I wrote an article concerning 16-year-old Erica Basoria, the pregnant teenage mother from Texas and her boyfriend, 18-year-old Gerardo "Jerry" Flores. Flores faced capital murder charges for killing two unborn children when he beat his girlfriend in the abdomen. The bizarre twist, Erica requested the young man to punch her in the abdomen repeatedly, precisely in order to kill these children. Jerry Flores was charged under the Texas Prenatal Protection Act. Erica Basoria was not charged at all.

The twins, like Baby Girl Skinner, are dead.

That Texas Act was passed in 2003 in order to protect unborn children. It is similar to the "Unborn Victims of Violence Act", or "Conner’s Bill", the Federal legislation named for Conner Peterson, the slain unborn child of Laci Peterson. The Act defines "individual" as, "a human being who is alive, including an unborn child at every ...