New Hampshire lawmakers have been forced to correct a bill this week that unintentionally granted pregnant women the right to murder with impunity.
At present, 40 states in the US have already have established ‘foetal homicide laws’, which define the foetus as a person as is commonly enforced to protect women and the unborn when they are victims of violence.
Legislators working on New Hampshire’s bill 66 assumed that it would allow murder charges to be filed against those who cause the death of an unborn baby. It was thought that once foetuses reached 20 weeks of gestation, they could be considered victims of murder, homicide or negligent homicide, as well as assisted suicide. The document set out exceptions for women seeking abortion and for their doctors.
However, after passing the bill by both houses of congress, legislators realised that the document contained a significant error. It transpired the bill’s language was drafted in such a way that, by preventing women seeking abortions from being accused of murder, it allowed them, in theory, to kill any citizen without legal consequences.
According to the text, “any act committed by a pregnant woman” or a “doctor” would not be used in cases of second degree murder, negligent homicide or homicide, as well as assisted suicide, the Concord Monitor reports.
Although the bill had already been passed, legislators led by members of the Republican Party, corrected the significant error through a process previously only engaged for grammar and spelling correction. The murder exemption has now been reduced to apply only to cases when a foetus dies.
