New Colorado State Senate President Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, presides over the Senate during the opening session of the 2015 Colorado Legislature. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)
A measure to allow for charges in the death of an unborn child won initial approval in the state Senate on Monday, an eventful start to the final full week of the General Assembly session.
The bill, sponsored by Senate President Bill Cadman, of a pregnant Longmont woman whose 7-month-old fetus was cut from her womb and later died.
Cadman, a Colorado Springs Republican, said the attack on Michelle Wilkins is just the latest case in the state that demands justice for the pregnant woman and the unborn child.
“It would provide for a law that would fill a significant gap,” he said.
The voice vote to approve the bill — which came after a lengthy debate — and votes on amendments indicated that the bill is likely to pass 18-17 along party lines with the majority Republicans in favor. But the Democratic House is expected to block it.
In the Senate debate, Democrats unsuccessfully sought to amend the bill to take out the language defining a person as an “unborn child at every stage of gestation from conception until live birth.” Another amendment that failed would have gutted the measure to only increase the penalties in attacks on pregnant women under Colorado’s current law.
The critics cited concerns that Senate Bill 268 included verbatim sections from model legislation proposed by Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion organization, and cited similar laws in other states where district attorneys prosecuted pregnant mothers for endangering the child.
“It makes me and many others very nervous to go down … this path,” said Senate Democratic leader Morgan Carroll of Aurora.
Cadman said the bill is limited by language exempting actions of the mother and only applies to cases in which the mother doesn’t consent. “Against the wishes of the mother — that’s the caveat,” he said.
The final Senate vote is expected Tuesday before the bill goes to the House, where Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, D-Boulder, has said it would fail.
