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Interestingly, our fetal homicide law is quite a bit stronger than the one laid out by the Bible itself. From Exodus 21:22: When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman's husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine.

Certainly the young girl's murder should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, but what do people feel about treating the death of a fetus in this circumstance as a homicide?

Thanks for bringing this up.

I'm amazed that the Strib wrote a lengthy, front-page article about this without once even hinting at the unborn child law, when it was enacted and how often it's been used.

I think fetal homicide is perfectly legitimate if that fetus would have a chance at life if born at the minute of the crime. At 7 months gestation, that fetus could realistically have been viable.

Leaving an abortion debate aside, I would simply understand if this is an inconsistent position to be both pro-choice (which I'll go out on a limb and guess most mnspeakers are) and pro-fetal-homicide-law. I think is depends on what your pro-choice argument is.

If you use the sort of Singerian argument which is basically that a fetus has all of the intellect and sentience of a pig and pigs are made from bacon - then in this case you're basically saying abortion is murder, but you're for giving the owner of the kid the choice to commit murder. Which would be inconsistent, I hope.

On the other hand, if you use the "you wouldn't force me to donate a kidney" argument, it's sort of like killing someone who's on life support, which, of course, is still homicide.

The former's always seemed stronger for me, but I think I could be swayed.