The Unborn Victims of Violence Act, proposed recently on the floor of the U.S. Congress, is intended to give harsher penalties to individuals convicted of killing pregnant women.

The bill, also known as the Laci and Connor Law, comes on the heels of the much-publicized murder case of Laci Peterson, who was pregnant with her son when she was found dead in California. Sponsored by Pennsylvania Rep. Melissa Hart, R-Pa., it is similar to defeated legislation from 1999 and 2001.

If passed, it would impose separate sentences for the deaths of a woman and her fetus.

Although noble in the seeming intention to deter violence against pregnant women, the fact that the bill would give legal rights to unborn children has serious political implications within the context of the never-ending and derisive abortion debate.

The law would say that a fetus is a living, breathing human being because a murder, by definition, cannot happen to something that is not alive.

More directly, the language of the bill implicitly refers to an unborn fetus as a "fetal person."

It is obvious that this law would create a legal double standard in our judicial system -- opposing the precedent of Roe vs. Wade -- that would have to be resolved through our courts and our society deciding whether a fetus is a person, and when life actually begins in the womb.

Both American judges and society are currently far from any consensus on this issue. Until the courts decide the instant life begins in the womb, the law is unworkable. And recent history and current debates show that this is not going to be anytime soon.

Also, the fact that such a bill has been proposed that will obviously die a long, drawn-out death in the federal judicial system leaves the legislation wide open to allegations of being a political ploy during an election year.

Trying to ride the wave of sympathy for a pregnant murder victim in California into a back-door assault on Roe v. Wade to get votes is morally wrong.

Opening an entirely new forum to fight one of this country's most polarizing issues is not what a divided nation needs.

And a personal tragedy should not be used for political gain.