AUGUSTA (AP) – Gov. John Baldacci will sign into law a bill that makes it a crime punishable by up to 30 years in prison if an assault on a pregnant woman results in the death of the fetus, the governor’s spokesman said.

By a vote of 35-0, the Senate gave its support Monday to the bill that creates the new crime of elevated aggravated assault resulting in the termination of a woman’s pregnancy. The House backed the measure last week.

Sponsored by Rep. Brian Duprey, R-Hampden, the original bill that would have created the crimes of fetal murder and fetal manslaughter created a firestorm at the State House.

Senate Democratic leaders who opposed the House-backed bill repeatedly postponed votes and decided instead to send it back to the Judiciary Committee for a possible rewrite.

Activists on both sides were forced to craft a compromise that creates the new crime of “elevated aggravated assault on a pregnant person.”

A suspect can be convicted of that crime if the assailant causes serious bodily injury that “results in the termination of a pregnancy.” The bill does not apply to fetal deaths resulting from an abortion or medical care, which will not be treated as assault.

Supporters of the prior bill would have preferred that the state allow murder or manslaughter charges to be filed for the death of a fetus, but they settled for the creation of a crime that protects a pregnant woman who loses her fetus during an assault.

The Senate passed the bill after a brief debate in which Republican Sen. Debra Plowman of Hampden, who ultimately voted for the bill, said it has merit but fails to recognize that there are “two victims” if an attacker kills a pregnant woman and her fetus.

Democratic Sen. Barry Hobbins of Saco countered that the bill “does something that we do not have in the law now,” by creating a category of assault that applies only to victims who are pregnant and lose their fetuses.

The compromise closed the book on an at-times acrimonious debate over Duprey’s so-called Laci Peterson bill, which took its name from a pregnant California woman who was killed in 2002 by her husband, Scott Peterson.

California is one of 32 states that have fetal homicide laws, and Peterson was convicted in 2004 of murdering both his wife and her fetus. The federal government also has such a law, but Maine and 17 other states do not.

—

Information from: Portland Press Herald, http://www.pressherald.com

AP-ES-06-14-05 1007EDT

Copy the Story Link