Bush signs pro-choice legislation?

In the news today:

President Bush, eager to hand another victory to the social conservatives who make up his most loyal base of political support, decided on an elaborate ceremony to sign into law legislation expanding legal rights of the unborn.

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act makes it a crime to harm a fetus during an assault on a pregnant woman. Bush was signing the bill, which took five years to get through Congress, on Thursday in the Rose Garden.

People on both sides of the fetal rights and abortion issue have said the new law will have far-reaching consequences.

As a person with decidedly libertarian leanings, I support a woman's right to choose what to do with her body, whether that means carrying a handgun to defend her body from harm or choosing to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. I'll save for another day my full views on the subject.

Back to the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. I can see where the arguments come from on both sides of this issue, but if a woman CHOOSES to keep her baby, and it is subsequently killed in a violent assault on the woman, wouldn't that woman want the state to recognize her choice to keep the baby and hold its killer accountable for that crime? By not prosecuting the killer, the government would essentially be telling this woman, your choice is of no consequence, we will make that choice for you now.

I don't see this bill as an infringement on a woman's right to choose. Women don't choose to be brutally attacked. Laci peterson certainly wasn't a willing participant in her savage killing. If someone had murdered my wife while she was carrying our twin daughters, do you think I would just ignore their deaths as if nothing happened? I would want to see that person slowly and painfully tortured and killed brought to justice for the three murders he had committed.