NATION IN BRIEF : MINNESOTA : Court OKs Penalties for Slaying Embryo

It is not necessary to define when human life begins to impose criminal penalties for killing a fetus, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in St. Paul. “The state must prove only that the implanted embryo or the fetus in the mother’s womb was living, that it had life, and that it has life no longer,” the court ruled. The opinion was issued in the case of a Rochester, Minn., man charged with two counts each of first- and second-degree murder in the November, 1988, shooting deaths of a 22-year-old woman and her 4-week-old embryo.

“The defendant who assaults a pregnant woman causing the death of the fetus she is carrying destroys the fetus without the consent of the woman,” the court said. “This is not the same as the woman who elects to have her pregnancy terminated by one legally authorized to perform the act.”