He didn't "kill a baby"

[BklnDem75]

165. When the Death of a Fetus Is Murder

In the latest ruling on the question of when a fetus should have the legal status of a person, the California Supreme Court decided on Monday that an assault on a pregnant woman that kills her fetus can be prosecuted as murder, even if the fetus is not viable.

The ruling came in a San Diego case involving a robbery in 1991 in which a pregnant woman was shot after cashing a welfare check. The woman, Maria Flores, survived the shooting, but her fetus, a male 22 to 25 weeks old, did not.

Although the ruling will not have any direct effect on abortion rights, a series of cases on fetal murder raises issues of intense interest to those on both sides of the abortion debate.

The question of "fetal personhood" has come up in a wide range of cases. In recent years courts have heard claims that a fetus should be entitled to a tax deduction, that a pregnant prisoner should be freed because her fetus could not be jailed without a trial, that a pregnant driver was entitled to use the car-pool lane because she was carrying a passenger, and that pregnant women who took drugs should be prosecuted under laws that prohibit giving drugs to minors.

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/20/us/when-the-death-of-a-fetus-is-murder.html