DENVER—Colorado lawmakers on Wednesday rejected a law adopted in 37 other states that would punish people who kill a fetus while committing another crime, after opponents said it’s an attempt to pave the way for a ban on abortion.
Kevin Paul, representing Planned Parenthood, told lawmakers the bill could leave the state and doctors open to lawsuits by recognizing that life begins before birth, even though the bill specifically ruled out prosecution for abortions where a woman gives consent.
“Something can’t be dead unless it was alive,” he told the Senate’s State, Veterans, and Military Affairs Committee, which rejected the bill.
Paul told lawmakers there are already state laws that would allow prosecutors to include crimes against an unborn child if the mother was the victim of a violent crime.
Tamara Wilson, representing all 22 district attorneys in Colorado, said that under Colorado law, prosecutors must prove the person intended to kill the baby while attacking the mother. She said it would be almost impossible to prosecute a crime like the Laci Peterson case.
Peterson was eight months pregnant when she was killed in 2002 in California. Her fetus did not survive. Scott Peterson, Laci’s husband, is now on death row at San Quentin State Prison. He denies killing his wife.
“That would not be a double murder. We might not even be able to let the jury know she was pregnant,” Wilson said.
Wilson also cited three cases in Colorado where prosecutors were stymied. In 1995, two teenagers drove a vehicle into a home and killed a pregnant woman and her fetus. Charges were filed in the death of the woman, but not the child. In 2007, a man in a vehicle struck a pregnant woman head-on, and the only charge that could be filed was child abuse resulting in death. In 2008, a man shot his pregnant girlfriend, killing the woman and the baby. No charges were filed in the death of the child.
Sen. Betty Boyd, D-Lakewood, said the measure was a backdoor attempt to introduce a “personhood” amendment rejected by Colorado voters in 2008.
On Wednesday, the secretary of state said an attempt this year to ban abortions in Colorado failed to get enough signatures. The proposed initiative would have added fertilized embryos to the definition of humans in the state constitution.
Proponents have another 15 days to collect additional signatures to get the 76,047 needed to make the ballot.
