Senator Vince Illuzzi (R) of Vermont has sponsored a bill that brings back the debate of fetal personhood. The bill was proposed after Patricia Blair, a Vermont citizen, was involved in a motor vehicle accident which took the lives of her unborn, 6-month-old twins. Current Vermont law does not recognize a fetus, even a viable one, killed in an accident as a victim, nor are there additional penalties for killing a fetus. The majority of states have some form of fetal homicide law which recognizes the killing of a fetus as a criminal act punishable to varying degrees under the law. What they may not have are laws that formally recognize fetal personhood, which has implications in the abortion debate. There are current 16 states without a fetal homicide law – Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, New Jersey, Oregon, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming. [via WPTZ]
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Dr. Steven Chang, the author of DailyDose, is a staff physician with Kosmix RightHealth. Dr. Chang practices Family Medicine at the University of California Davis Medical Center, where his medical interests include both pediatric and geriatric care, public health, gay and lesbian health, and sleep medicine. Dr. Chang trained at the Stanford University affiliated O'Connor Hospital, and was a research fellow at the National Institute of Health. He holds an M.D. from McGill University and a BA in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University.