Unborn

WAUKESHA, Wis. -- In the next few months, the Wisconsin Supreme Court is expected to decide whether county officials in this Milwaukee suburb acted legally when they took custody of an unborn child a month before its due date.The pregnant woman was using cocaine, drugging the developing baby. The local social services agency asked a Juvenile Court judge to place the fetus in Waukesha Memorial Hospital. The judge issued a detention order to the Waukesha County sheriff.The 24-year-old addict carrying the fetus had no say in the matter.

Your eyelids and your eyes,your lips and all that lieswithin my womb I prize.Little fish, little bird,flutter fin and wing. The Wordthrough this woman will enter earth,by this body, have its birth.Dream within, little one.What is willed will be done.Pub Date: 12/13/96

Washington. -- It took the big media about a week to find a fanatic who would attempt to justify the murder of two women at a Massachusetts abortion clinic and the firing on a second clinic in Norfolk, Virginia. But their efforts did not go unrewarded.Donna Bray, the 34-year-old spouse of a convicted clinic bomber and mother of five, heads an organization called ''Defenders of Defenders of Life.'' She thinks convicted clinic killers like Paul Hill and Michael Griffin, and the accused murderer John Salvi, are theologically correct when they use violence to stop violence against the unborn.

Washington. -- The most frightening entry on any ballot next Tuesday is no candidate, but something in Oregon called ''Measure 16.'' It will, in effect, erase the few safeguards that separate human life from all other living things.If Measure 16 passes, doctors would be protected by law when they offered lethal drugs to ''terminally ill'' patients. Supporters claim that enough ''safeguards'' are built in, such as second and third opinions, written requests for the drugs by the patient and testimonies from others -- including at least one non-family member -- that the request for immediate departure from this life is rational and sincere.

A longtime anti-abortion activist from Bowie is leading a campaign to defend as "morally justifiable" the slayings of a doctor and his volunteer escort outside a Pensacola, Fla., abortion clinic in July.Donna Bray says she and her supporters, known as Defenders of the Defenders of Life, are seeking moral and financial support for the accused, former Presbyterian minister Paul Hill, and his family.Mr. Hill, 40, is charged with first-degree murder in the shotgun slayings of Dr. John B. Britton, 69, and retired Air Force Lt. Col. James H. Barrett, 74, as they arrived July 29 at the Ladies Center, one of two Pensacola, Fla., abortion clinics.

Rosty was cleared by the jurors he cares most about.Rabin always knew what he had to do. He also knew he needed for everybody to see Bill tell him.If Kurt runs for governor and Don runs for mayor, in a couple of years we can have another gubernatorial raid on The Block.The proposed welfare cap would punish babies for being born. The idea is that it should make unborn babies think twice before going all the way.

Houston's 'Legacy': photographs of his timeBaltimore photographer Robert Houston's "Legacy to an Unborn Son" is a project to record life in urban America in his time, primarily through photographs of the daily lives of ordinary people. A book by that title was published in 1971, but Mr. Houston has continued the project, and a show of "Legacy to an Unborn Son" opens at the Montpelier Cultural Arts Center on Wednesday. Mr. Houston, a photographer for 25 years, has used many locations in his work; some of the photographs in the show were taken in Baltimore.

IN HER debut as a feature film maker, Julie Dash offers in "Daughters of the Dust" a welcome respite from the desperate images of gang violence that currently dominate black cinema.The movie, which opens today at the Senator Theatre in Baltimore, finds its resonance in the struggles of African Americans viewed from a historical perspective, just as last year's urban dramas -- Spike Lee's "Jungle Fever," John Singleton's "Boyz N the Hood" and Mario Van Peebles' "New Jack City" -- found theirs in forceful, tragic portrayals of contemporary inner-city despair.

WASHINGTON -- Lindsey Montague stands in the bright sunshine on the marble steps of the Supreme Court and holds up the tiny feet poster.The tiny feet poster is, depending on your point of view, one of the most moving or one of the most disgusting posters in the battle over abortion.It shows an enlarged color picture of an adult hand holding the two incredibly tiny feet of what is, presumably, a fetus. In large type on the poster is the biblical quotation: "I am fearfully and wonderfully made."

ANNAPOLIS -- Setting up a repeat legislative struggle over the emotional issue of abortion, abortion opponents in the Senate introduced legislation last night that would prohibit abortions for birth control or sex selection and would otherwise restrict when the procedure could be performed in Maryland.The bill, introduced by Sen. John A. Cade, R-Anne Arundel, would permit abortions only if the life or physical health of the mother were endangered, in cases of rape or incest, or if it was determined the unborn child would probably be severely deformed or handicapped if carried to term.

A Charles County man accused of conspiring in the shooting of a Crofton woman who believed he was the father of her unborn child can be freed from jail until his trial, in a bail ruling Monday that was a blow to Anne Arundel County prosecutors but was praised by his lawyer. Bail for Charles Brandon Martin, 32, was returned to $500,000 by Circuit Judge Michele D. Jaklitsch, the amount set when Martin was initially charged in March in the Oct. 27 shooting of a pregnant hairdresser. But when the married father was indicted last month, Circuit Judge William Mulford II ordered him held without bail, siding with prosecutors who said they feared for the victim's safety.

Man charged in murder try A man charged with attempting to murder a 26-year-old woman last fall in Crofton is believed by the woman to be the father of her unborn child, according to police and court documents. Charles B. Martin, 32, of Charles County was arrested Monday afternoon after months of investigation by Anne Arundel County homicide detectives, who linked him to the shooting through interviews with witnesses and a hair found at the crime scene, said Capt. David Waltemeyer, who commands the department's criminal investigation division.

Let state preserve Shehan property The article "Economy puts future of sanctuary in doubt" (Feb. 20) doesn't precisely report that Audubon is honoring both the intent and the terms of Jean Ellen duPont Shehan's generous gift by seeking the ongoing protection of the property. We hope the state will be able to acquire and protect the property for public use. If the state is unable to do so, we will be forced to find a private conservation buyer but will still protect the property with an appropriate conservation easement or restrictive covenants.

Jan. 9 Bride Wars : (20th Century Fox) Childhood best friends plan their weddings, each to take place at New York's ultimate bridal destination, the Plaza Hotel. But a clerical error and subsequent clash in wedding dates pit the two brides against each other. With Kate Hudson, Anne Hathaway and Candice Bergen. Gran Torino : (Warner Bros.) Clint Eastwood directs and stars as an iron-willed veteran forced by his immigrant neighbors to confront his own long-held prejudices. Clive Barker Presents: Hellraiser : (Weinstein Co.)

Elizabeth Walters grew up with many families. A foster child who was adopted at the age of 10, she split her time between her birth family and her adoptive family. Later, girlfriends at Catholic High School and co-workers and patrons at the neighborhood bar where she was a waitress also became like family to her. It was her appreciation for the concept of family that prompted Elizabeth Walters to confront the married man with whom she was expecting a baby about what role he'd play in the little girl's life, friends and relatives said.

The sentencing hearing of a man convicted of killing a pregnant woman and the pair's unborn baby in Parkville last year was postponed yesterday after the judge discovered that a pre-sentence investigation was not completed. David L. Miller, 25, had been scheduled to be sentenced yesterday in the June 2007 deaths of Elizabeth Walters and the fetus she was carrying. It was the first time Maryland's fetal homicide law had been used in the death of an unborn child. Baltimore County Circuit Judge Dana M. Levitz decided to reschedule the sentencing after attorneys in the case determined that the judge's order for a pre-sentence report never made it to the Department of Parole and Probation.

Baltimore County jurors needed less than an hour yesterday to convict a married Parkville man of killing a pregnant woman and the pair's unborn baby on a shopping center parking lot in June - the first time Maryland's fetal homicide law has been used to charge someone in the death of an unborn child. David L. Miller, 25, hung his head as guilty verdicts were read yesterday afternoon. Across the courtroom, friends and family members of Elizabeth Walters wiped away tears and quietly hugged one another.

It was about 8 a.m. June 11 when Heather Lowe drove her best friend to the Parkville home of the married man who got her pregnant. "She wanted to talk to him about the baby," Lowe testified yesterday of her friend, Elizabeth Walters. "She got upset. A seven-months-pregnant woman with hormones raging, you want answers. You get upset." More than two hours later, the man, David L. Miller, finally answered Walters' repeated phone calls and told her to meet him at a nearby shopping center, Lowe told jurors.

When Baltimore County police Lt. Dean E. Brubaker arrived in the parking lot of a Parkville shopping center last June, he poked his head into the window of a car where two women were shot. "Do you know who shot you?" he asked the woman who was conscious and had called 911. "The guy she is pregnant by shot us - David Miller," the woman responded, nodding toward her friend, Elizabeth Walters, who was ashen and unresponsive, Brubaker testified yesterday. The testimony came on the first day of Miller's double-murder trial in Baltimore County Circuit Court, where prosecutors are seeking a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for the deaths of Walters, 24, as well as her unborn child.

A man accused of fatally shooting the mother of his unborn child in a Baltimore County parking lot last month will face two murder charges, one in the woman's death and one in the fetus' death, marking the first prosecution under the state's fetal homicide law. David L. Miller, 24, was indicted on two counts of first-degree murder by a Baltimore County grand jury yesterday in the death of Elizabeth Walters, 24, and her unborn child, Baltimore County State's...