The law defines this term, “child in utero" as "a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.

[2] The legislation was both hailed and vilified by various legal observers who interpreted the measure as a step toward granting legal personhood to human fetuses, even though the bill explicitly contained a provision excepting abortion, stating that the bill would not "be construed to permit the prosecution... of any person for conduct relating to an abortion for which the consent of the pregnant woman, or a person authorized by law to act on her behalf", "of any person for any medical treatment of the pregnant woman or her unborn child" or "of any woman with respect to her unborn child".

"[8] Furthermore, the Committee also rejected by voice vote two amendments in which would have directed the federal sentencing commission to amend sentencing guidelines for crimes that injury or death to a pregnant women [8] and a rejection against deleting language in the bill that would have allowed convictions in cases where prosecutors did not show a defendant knew the victim or had the intention to cause death or injury to a fetus.

"[9] This would have also required that the defendant to be convicted of a federal crime against a pregnant woman prior to receiving additional consequences for harming a fetus.

[9] Bill Frist, Majority Leader, attempted to acknowledge a similar legislation to the Senate floor in July 2003 prohibiting amendments, however, the Democratic party objected.

At the signing ceremony, the President was joined on stage by men and women who had lost family members in two-victim crimes, including Laci Peterson's mother, Sharon Rocha.

"[12] The Unborn Victims of Violence Act was strongly opposed by most abortion-rights organizations, on grounds that the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision said that the human fetus is not a "person" under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and that if the fetus were a Fourteenth Amendment "person", then they would have a constitutional right to life.

[14] Senator John Kerry, who was the Democratic nominee in the 2004 presidential election, voted against the bill, saying, "I have serious concerns about this legislation because the law cannot simultaneously provide that a fetus is a human being and protect the right of the mother to choose to terminate her pregnancy.

[17] Representative Jerrold Nadler made a statement in voicing his opposition to a proposed federal law giving prenatal entities certain legal rights.

The bill appears to contradict an important premise behind the constitutional right to seek an abortion: prenatal entities are not persons.

[1] Provides that persons who commit certain Federal violent crimes conduct that violates specified provisions of the Federal criminal code, the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, or the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, or specified articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and thereby cause the death of, or bodily injury to, a child who is in utero shall be guilty of a separate offense.