Congress is expected to vote on the Unborn Victims of Violence Act later this week, which would make it separate crimes to kill or injure both a woman and her unborn fetus.

U.S. Rep. Melissa Hart, R-Pa., is the bill's House sponsor. She introduced similar versions of the bill in the 1999 and 2001 congressional sessions.

"Basically, some alarming statistics emerged concluding that the No. 1 cause of death among pregnant women is homicide," Lee Cohen, Hart's press secretary, said.

A controversial case involving the vehicular homicide of a pregnant woman occurred in the State College area in 2001.

That year, a Centre County judged ruled that Alfred Cantolina would not be charged with a second count of vehicular homicide or homicide while driving under the influence after killing a 29-year-old woman and her unborn son in a car accident on Benner Pike.

The commonwealth withdrew both of the charges, citing the precedent set by the Commonwealth v. Jeffrey Robert Booth case. In that case, Booth, of Westmoreland County, was charged with hitting a woman who was in her eighth month of pregnancy and killing the unborn child. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed the charge.

Cohen said Hart hopes the legislation will act as a deterrent for potential crimes among pregnant women and enable families to seek compensation for two crimes instead of just one.

Some people said they think the bill would clear the way for a fetus being classified as alive before it is born, implicating that abortion is murder.

Jennifer Ziegler, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood for the Susquehanna Valley, said Planned Parenthood opposes the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.

Ziegler said the bill is supposed to recognize an unborn fetus as a separate legal person, calling it a fetal person as opposed to a fetus. "The problem with this bill is that it takes the focus off women who are the victim of violence, " Ziegler said. "It then focuses the crime on an unborn fetus."

Ziegler said nowhere in the legislation is the harm to women mentioned. She said Planned Parenthood recognizes that violence against women is a huge problem in America, and all this bill does is shift the problem away from women. "Violence against women is a significant problem, but we feel this bill does not address that," she said.

Members of some campus organizations, such as the Penn State Students for Life, support all measures the bill would take to protect unborn children.

"I definitely agree with the Unborn Victims of Violence Act," said Andrea Staargaard (sophomore-marketing and international business), a member of Students for Life. "Women who were punched, kicked, stabbed, all the way up through their ninth month of pregnancy, and the attackers were only charged with simple assault, and this really hinders the closure process. Just because one of the victims is unborn doesn't mean it shouldn't be treated the same," she said.

Staargaard said she thinks many abortion rights advocates groups don't support this legislation because it gives the unborn fetus rights and would then undermine current abortion laws.

"I do not see how [this precedent] can be applied to abortion laws, which is what many pro-choice groups argue," Staargaard said. "This act would be punishing someone who perpetrated an attack against a mother and her unborn child, not someone performing an abortion." Staargaard said she is not aware of any planned demonstrations to support the bill either on campus or in Washington, D.C., but said she thinks some might take place.

The legislation is also known as Laci and Conner's Law, which was introduced in 2002 after the death of Laci Peterson and her unborn son.