Malorie Bantala knows she is just one of a very few British mothers who has received justice for the violent death of her unborn baby.
The south-east London mother and her 32-week unborn son, Joel, were the victims of a brutal attack by her ex-boyfriend, Kevin Wilson, 21, in 2015. Bantala survived with severe injuries, but her unborn son was killed in the attack.
Unlike in many American states, unborn victims of violence in England often do not receive any justice under the law. Bantala told Elle Magazine recently that she wants that to change.
“My ex-boyfriend killed my unborn child. … The authorities also need to understand there are guys out there who use violence to end a pregnancy,” Bantala said. “When are you going to recognise that this is an issue? When are you going to start protecting these women?”
She began a petition to parliament on Mother’s Day asking for a review of the laws involving unborn victims of violence.
Bantala’s son was one of a very few unborn babies who did receive justice under the current British child destruction laws, according to the report. Wilson was sentenced to life in prison in December 2015 for killing the unborn baby boy and assaulting Bantala, the report states.
Bantala said Wilson repeatedly pressured her to abort their unborn son, but she refused. On a June night in 2015, she said she walked home after visiting a friend to plan her baby shower; she was 32-weeks pregnant.
On the way home, two men ambushed Bantala, threw her to the ground and kicked her stomach numerous times, the report states. The young mother said she curled in a ball with her hands over her stomach, trying to protect her unborn son; but her attempts failed, and she suffered two broken fingers.
“I remember looking at [one of the guys] and then something clicked in my mind and I said ‘Oh s—, it’s Kevin.’ He turned round and we made brief eye contact,” she said during Wilson’s trial.
Baby Joel was stillborn by emergency cesarean section a few hours after the attack, the report states. Bantala also was hospitalized for 10 days and underwent several surgeries to fix a burst artery and her broken fingers.
“I felt like I was being attacked for ages but it was pretty quick,” she told Elle. “It was enough to kill the baby.”
According to the report, Wilson’s life sentence is unique for such an attack in England.
PRO-LIFE COLLEGE STUDENT? LifeNews is looking for interns interested in writing, social media, or video creation. Contact us today.
The article reports:
Bantala’s story is pretty unique. She was able to secure a conviction under the ‘child destruction’ legislation, (as well as grievous bodily harm), which is the offence of ‘killing a child capable of being born alive’. Legal abortion is the exception here. …
Most women, however, don’t receive the same level of justice. More often than not, it’s easier to charge perpetrators with assault against the mother. And, in the eyes of the law, an unborn child is not a person (until it takes a breath outside of the womb), so whoever hurts a pregnant woman can’t actually be charged with murder against the unborn child (even under the child destruction act).
Yet for victims of this kind of violence, that simply isn’t enough. Many want the sentence to be specifically for the death of their child, not just damage done to them.
In the United States, one in six women is first abused during pregnancy, according to the Centers for Disease Control. As LifeNews previously reported, one study found that as many as 64 percent of post-abortive women say they felt pressure to have an abortion.
LifeNews has reported countless crime stories involving pregnant women who have been threatened, assaulted or killed, often after they refused to abort their unborn babies.
In September 2016, police arrested a Tennessee man after his pregnant girlfriend accused him of kicking and hitting her when she told him that she would not abort their baby.
And in March 2017, a Hawaii jury convicted a man of murdering his pregnant ex-girlfriend after prosecutors said he stabbed her to death for refusing to abort their unborn child. It does not appear that there were any charges in connection to the unborn child’s death in the case.
Also in 2017, a California jury found Derek Paul Smyer, 36, of California, guilty of first- and second-degree murder after he allegedly hired a hitman who killed his pregnant girlfriend and their unborn son after she refused to have an abortion.
Many states have unborn victims of violence laws that allow for the prosecution of people who injure or kill babies in the womb. These laws include exceptions for the violence of abortion.
