Fetal homicide bill approved by Senate, but prospects dim

Colorado’s Republican Senate has approved a bill creating a new crime of fetal homicide in response to an attack on a pregnant woman last month in Longmont.

The bill faces one more vote in the Senate but then moves to the House, where it faces certain rejection.

Current Colorado law includes a crime of unlawfully terminating a pregnancy. But murder charges can’t be brought in such cases because the baby isn’t born.

The Colorado debate was inspired by the case last month of a pregnant Longmont woman who was attacked last month. The woman survived but the baby did not. The case revived debate about whether unborn babies need additional protections.

Democrats who control the House fear the change could endanger reproductive rights.