I normally don't post many articles here, but there seems to be more proof that Western culture allows abused women to kill a partner, but husbands who do so under the same circumstances cannot provide similar rationalizations.
In Britain, it's become clear as day. And even overt.
Can any feminist (and feminist minded) person give me a reason why this is being made legal policy? And the injustice of it all?
I think not.
The underlying assumption is that women kill because the have been abused to the brink of retaliation, and men should never come to that point. One of my questions remains as such: what if a man is acting out of self-defense for his very life? Or that women have (and can) kill men and fabricate claims of abuse in order to get away with murder?
Jealousy no defence for killer husbands, but abused wives can escape a murder charge
By James Slack and Steve Doughty
Last updated at 7:54 AM on 14th January 2009
Husbands who kill cheating wives in a so-called crime of passion will no longer be able to claim they were provoked, ministers will say today.
Stripping husbands of the right to claim that infidelity was the spur for their actions means they will face a charge of murder, rather than manslaughter.
But women who kill abusive partners in cold blood could escape a murder conviction if they prove they feared more violence.
The most sweeping changes to murder laws in 50 years are part of the Government's controversial Coroners and Justice Bill, to be published today.
Women who kill violent partners will be punished for the lesser offence of manslaughter, sparing them a mandatory life sentence. They must establish only that they were responding to a 'slow burn' of abuse.
The change sweeps aside the existing requirement in any defence of provocation that they killed on the spur of the moment after a 'sudden' loss of control.
But, in cases where a husband kills, the existing 'partial defence' of provocation if a wife was having an affair is scrapped altogether. The move means that the law will no longer recognise adultery as a 'serious wrong'.
Currently, men can escape a murder conviction because a provocation plea allows them to be tried instead for manslaughter.
Ministers say the law needs reform because it allows men to 'get away with murder'.
Harriet Harman, the minister for women, said: 'For centuries the law has allowed men to escape a murder charge in domestic homicide cases by blaming the victim.
'Ending the provocation defence in cases of "infidelity" is an important law change and will end the culture of excuses.'
Provocation will be scrapped as a defence altogether, and be replaced with two partial defences - that a person feared they could be the victim of serious violence, or could prove they had been 'seriously wronged' by the victim's actions.
The fear of further serious violence offers specific protection to women victims of domestic attacks. They will be able to claim they were responding to a 'slow burn' of abuse.
Equally controversial is allowing a person to claim they killed because they had been 'seriously wronged' by a person's actions or insults.
