If Scott Peterson can be convicted of killing his wife and their unborn son…(Cincinnati Enquirer):

A Hamilton man was indicted Friday in the death of a fetus during a road-rage incident in December.

A Hamilton County grand jury indicted Scott Crandall on Friday on nine charges, including involuntary manslaughter, aggravated vehicular homicide, vehicular assault and felonious assault. A warrant has been issued for Crandall’s arrest.

Crandall’s indictment stems from a Dec. 8 crash on Harrison Avenue in which two drivers involved in a minor traffic accident got into a fistfight. That sparked Crandall to jump back into his car and ram it into the other driver’s car, said Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters.

Ebony Foster, a 16-year-old pregnant with a nearly full-term fetus, was a passenger in the car that was rammed, Deters said. The fetus died from blunt-force trauma.

…While he was prosecutor 10 years ago, Deters was instrumental in changing Ohio law to make it a crime to kill or harm a fetus.

The case that sparked that began in 1995, when a driver lost control on Interstate 275 and slammed into a car driven by Suzanne Daly, killing Daly and her fetus. In the months after, her husband, Joseph Daly, and Deters began lobbying for the change.

Now an Ohio law, named for the Daly family, allows prosecutors to seek a range of charges when a fetus is the victim of a crime.

These kinds of cases can be intellectually problematic for those of us that are pro-choice, and I think that it this is a good thing. Clearly this fetus was probably going to make it to term, but because the mother had not given birth, it didn’t have “personhood” status — until the passage of these laws protecting a fetus have come into play. What does this mean in the pro-choice/pro-life debate? I am asking this as an honest question — I am a woman that hasn’t had an abortion and known that anguish, or tried to conceive without success (or miscarried several times trying to have a child at various stages of pregnancy). I’d like to hear perspectives on this. How does a story like this make you feel?

Thanks to House Blend reader Holly for the pointer.