DENVER — When is a murder not a murder? When a perpetrator attacks a pregnant woman in Colorado and kills her unborn child.

Democrat state lawmakers defeated a fetal-homicide bill May 4 introduced by Republicans following a shocking attack in March on a woman whose 7-month-old unborn child died after being cut from her womb.

Prosecutors were unable to file murder charges because it was determined the baby girl, who was to be named Aurora, wasn’t alive outside of her mother’s womb and therefore doesn’t qualify as a “person” under Colorado law.

Denver Archbishop Samuel Aquila described the inadequacy of Colorado’s law as “a travesty of justice.”

“The vast majority of Coloradans believe, as I do, that when the unborn child of a pregnant woman is murdered, as baby Aurora was, a homicide has been committed,” Archbishop Aquila said in a statement. “St. John Paul II reminded us in ‘The Gospel of Life’ that ‘There can be no true democracy without a recognition of every person’s dignity and without respect for his or her rights. Nor can there be true peace unless life is defended and promoted.’”

Laws should reflect this reality, the archbishop said.

In introducing his bill, Colorado Senate President Bill Cadman said it had one aim: to provide justice for both victims when pregnant women are targets of violent crimes — the mother and her unborn child.

The bill’s language would have defined “person” to include an unborn child from conception to live birth for murder and assault charges but would not have included acts committed by the mother such as abortion or medical procedures or lawfully prescribed medication requested by her.

“Senate Bill 268 is simple; Senate Bill 268 is just,” Cadman, a Republican, said addressing the Senate committee April 22. “It allows prosecution of people who harm or kill an unborn child against the wishes of the mother.”

The Offenses Against Unborn Children Act won approval in the Republican-controlled Senate but was rejected in committee by House Democrats on a party-line vote.

“I’m disgusted Democrats turned this into a debate about abortion,” House Assistant Minority Leader Polly Lawrence, a Republican, said in a statement, “and killed a bill for purely political reasons that would have provided justice to mothers and their children.”

Just before voting No, Chairwoman Su Ryden, a Democrat, said she sympathized with Lawrence’s motives for presenting the bill but disagreed with her.

“I think our laws currently on the books do address these crimes,” she said.

 

Crimes Against the Mother

Michelle Wilkins, 26, was assaulted March 18 when she went to a Longmont, Colo., home to buy maternity clothes she saw advertised on Craigslist. Authorities say Dynel Lane, 34, beat and stabbed Wilkins before cutting her baby from her womb. Wilkins lived, but her child did not.

Lane was charged with eight felony counts, including attempted murder of the mother, multiple counts of assault and unlawful termination of a pregnancy — a felony category added via the 2013 Crimes Against Pregnant Women Act as a compromise to fetal homicide. Due to the many charges against her, Lane could receive up to 100 years in prison.

An editorial in The Denver Post noted it won’t always be possible to bring multiple charges against a perpetrator who kills an unborn baby and that the Class 3 unlawful termination of a pregnancy felony of the Crimes Against Pregnant Women Act (with a sentencing range of 10 to 32 years) “is utterly inadequate.”

Witnesses testifying in favor of the bill affirmed that.

Erin Hanson, who was among those given just 30 seconds to testify at the May 4 hearing, told lawmakers she wants justice in the form of murder charges for the deaths of unborn children. Hanson’s daughter Amanda, 15, was four months pregnant when she was killed by her boyfriend in 2002. The murderer is serving life in prison for her death but was not charged for the death of the unborn child.

“I got justice for my daughter, not for my grandson,” Hanson said. “Those unborn babies need to be recognized. Someone needs to stand up for them.”

 

Nationwide Fetal-Homicide Laws

Thirty-seven states and the federal government have enacted fetal-homicide laws that recognize the unborn child as a victim in at least some circumstances. Colorado is one of just 12 states that do not have a fetal-homicide law.

Since 2010, three fetal-homicide bills were introduced and failed in the Colorado Legislature. Two were initiated in 2012, after a drunk driver crashed into a car driven by eight-months-pregnant Heather Surovik, 27, who subsequently lost her unborn son, and one in 2011, after seven-months-pregnant Laura Gorham, 27, was struck while walking by a hit-and-run driver, which killed her unborn son.

Addressing the senate, Cadman included those stories in a long list of crimes against pregnant women in Colorado whose perpetrators were never charged for the murder of the unborn children.

“This is not a new situation,” he said, speaking about the Wilkins case. “Although I would say the details of this crime are as horrific as they could be.”

Democrats of both chambers and pro-abortion advocates insisted the bill was another personhood measure, such as the one defeated by Colorado voters last year, that aims to define a person as entitled to full legal rights starting at conception in an effort to ban abortions.  

“I can tell you the personhood supporters (Colorado Right to Life and Personhood USA) do not support this bill because it’s not personhood,” Lawrence told the House committee.

The opponents of the fetal-homicide bill also claimed it could put pregnant women at risk for criminal charges for stillborn births or prenatal decisions that result in miscarriages, could have a chilling effect on women’s reproductive rights and could eventually do away with abortion.

Testifying before the House committee, Karen Middleton, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado, called the bill “a dangerous proposal for Colorado woman and their health.”

“Colorado’s (Crimes Against Pregnant Women) law is carefully balanced, unlike other states, where fetal-homicide laws have been used to prosecute pregnant women and even put them in jail,” Middleton said. “Fetal personhood laws, such as S.B. 268, create the risk of prosecution of physicians for providing care to pregnant women as well as for providing abortion services.”

Natalie Decker, an attorney with Alliance for Defending Freedom, testified after Middleton.

“It’s clear we’ve heard from witnesses who are among the most strident and extreme abortion advocates in this nation,” Decker said. “Only those who agree with these witnesses who pretend that this bill would somehow affect abortion rights or have made blatantly false claims that women would be prosecuted, when there is clearly an exception from that, could find a reason to oppose this commonsense legislation.”

 

‘False Claims’

Democratic House committee member Mike Foote, who sponsored the 2013 Crimes Against Pregnant Women Act, said his law avoids personhood language to prevent it from being used against pregnant women who miscarry or have an abortion, while providing tough penalties for those who harm them.

“The law is working,” he said.

The Colorado bishops — Archbishop Aquila, Colorado Springs Bishop Michael Sheridan and Pueblo Bishop Stephen Berg — see it differently.

“The majority of states and the federal government, with support from both Democrats and Republicans, have enacted fetal-homicide laws; these types of laws recognize that when a woman is pregnant and certain crimes are committed there are two victims — the woman and her unborn child,” they said in a statement.

“Opponents of this legislation grossly exaggerated the consequences of passing this bill and made false claims regarding various aspects of this legislation, all of which were routinely discredited and disproved.”

“The failure to enact a fetal-homicide law in Colorado,” the bishops said, “is a grave miscarriage of justice that leaves future unborn victims of crime unrecognized in Colorado law.”  

Roxanne King writes from Denver.