Fetal Homicide (Essay Sample)

Fetal Homicide
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Section 187 (a) of the California Penal Code Section states that murder involves the illegal killing involving premeditated malice (US Legal, 2015). It is in the public's interest to make it a separate crime to kill a fetus given that abortion is widely unacceptable and thus it is considered a criminal activity leading to murder of a fetus by a fellow human being using malice aforethought. It is also in the public’s interest to make it a separate crime to kill the fetus given that such a move would be essential in establishing fetal personhood, as a result, this will make abortion an illegal activity.
There exist a conflict between fetal homicide laws and abortion rights in the United States given that the new wave of fetal protection laws have led to a collision in the American law. The fetal protection laws that treat feticide as murder do not sufficiently define the intrauterine fetuses as human beings (National Right to Life, 2015). In addition, there exist a moral conundrum because the definition and legal interpretation of the word "person" is different. The California defines murder as the purposeful killing of a human being or a fetus, however, pregnant mothers also have a right to procure an abortion if their lives or that of the unborn are in danger. Such a conflict can be resolved if both the rights and interest of the fetuses are harmonized with the women’s right to terminate pregnancy.
The born-alive rule states that an act of fetal homicide could have been committed if a child is born alive and subsequently succumbs to prenatal injury while it was still in the womb (US Legal, 2015). The viability standard states that a woman has a right to terminate her pregnancy until the point of viability. The fetus is said to be viable if it could survive outside the mother’s womb. The fetus conceptions ...