LONGMONT, Colo. (AP) – The gruesome case of a Colorado woman accused of cutting open the belly of a pregnant woman and removing her unborn baby girl is reviving the highly charged debate over when a fetus can legally be considered a human being.
In the past two years, Colorado twice rejected efforts to make the death of a fetus a homicide. The Democratic-led Legislature voted down a bill in 2013, and 65 percent of voters rejected a ballot measure last year that would have granted legal rights to unborn fetuses, the third rejection of a “personhood measure.”
That leaves the state as one of 12 without a law allowing homicide charges in the violent deaths of fetuses – and the fate of Dynel Lane up in the air. Authorities say Lane lured a woman who was nearly eight months pregnant to her home this week by advertising baby clothes on Craigslist. Lane is accused of stabbing the stranger in the belly and removing the fetus.
Stan Garnett, the district attorney of liberal Boulder County, said during a news conference Thursday that Colorado law makes it challenging to file homicide charges when fetuses are killed.
“Under Colorado law, essentially no murder charges can be brought if the child did not live outside of the mother,” Garnett said.