In Virginia, mother who kills baby can not be charged
Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air calls this one of the worst stories of the year. A Virginia woman gave birth seven days ago and smothered her child within hours. Since the umbilical cord and placenta were still connected mother and child, a loophole in the law prevents the mother from being charged with murder.
This is not going over well in Virgina, or anywhere else for that matter.
From WSLS, with a hat tip to Morrissey who originally credits Creative Minority Report for sending him the story.
Deputies were called to a home in the 1200 block of Lone Jack Road in Rustburg around 11:00a.m. Friday. The caller said a woman in her early 20s was in labor. When deputies arrived, they discovered the baby had actually been born around 1:00a.m., about ten hours earlier. Investigators say the baby was already dead when deputies got there.
Investigators tell WSLS the baby’s airway was still blocked. They say the baby was under bedding and had been suffocated by her mother. Investigators say because the mother and baby were still connected by the umbilical cord and placenta, state law does not consider the baby to be a separate life. Therefore, the mother cannot be charged.
“In the state of Virginia as long as the umbilical cord is attached and the placenta is still in the mother, if the baby comes out alive the mother can do whatever she wants to with that baby to kill it.“, says Investigator Tracy Emerson. “She could shoot the baby, stab the baby. As long as it’s still attached to her in some form by umbilical cord or something it’s no crime in the state of Virginia.“
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There you go: the unnatural extrapolation of the "it's only a piece of tissue" definition of a baby. This abomination goes beyond the atrocity of late term abortions, wherein the "doctor" could kill the baby so long as he/she was not physically separated from the mother. Can a conjoined twin legally kill their sibling? Methinks that on this, the law is an ass.
One has to wonder – how did she know about this loophole? Did some liberal vigilante lawyer tell her exactly what she had to do to prevent prosecution? Did they say if she was conservative or liberal? (that is a rhetorical question) If the connection had been severed during the act of murder, would the infant have then been considered a real person and subject to the protections of the law, or was there some sort of Obamaesque refusal to pass a BAIPA-like law in VA?
I trust the good people of Virginia will move to strike this loophole from the books at their earliest opportunity.