Death of Fetus Spurs New Penalties : Governor OKs Measure on Pregnancies Ended by Attacks

Gov. George Deukmejian signed a bill Wednesday establishing a five-year additional penalty for anyone convicted of a felony attack that causes a pregnancy to be terminated.

The bill, authored by Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Ventura), was spurred by a 1983 stabbing that resulted in the death of a 4-month-old fetus being carried by a Simi Valley girl.

Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael Bradbury proposed the legislation after determining that the 14-year-old girl’s attacker, who was 17, could not be charged with murder because the law does not consider the fetus to be a living person independent of the mother’s body.

Offense ‘Fell Into a Crack’

“That offense fell right into a crack between great bodily injury and murder,” McClintock said.

The penalty for murder is 25 years to life. A conviction of great bodily injury adds three years to the penalty for the crime that led to the injury.

In the Simi Valley case, the attacker was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and commission of great bodily injury and sentenced to six years in prison.

The same penalty would have applied had the injury been as slight as a broken arm, McClintock said.

“The killing of a fetus is a far more heinous act that a simple broken bone,” McClintock said. “This bill establishes an intermediate ground to recognize the greater harm done to a mother and to society by the murder of a fetus.”

Passed Unanimously

In its first appearance before the Legislature two years ago, the bill failed to get out of committee. But in September both houses of the Legislature passed it unanimously.

The new legislation, which becomes effective Jan. 1, will impose a five-year prison term on top of the base penalty for a crime “where an injury is intentionally inflicted upon a pregnant woman by a person who knows or should know that the victim is pregnant . . . which causes the termination of the pregnancy.”