The Nebraska Legislature last week voted 39-1 to give first-round approval to a bill that would make it a crime to harm an "unborn child."
Passage of the bill would mean that anyone who intentionally harmed a fetus would face 20 years in prison and a $20,000 fine, and that accidental injury to a fetus -- including during the commission of another crime like robbery, assault or drunken driving -- would be considered criminal assault. What's scary is the language used to define the crime victim as "an individual member of the species Homo sapiens at any stage of development in utero." The bill is being sponsored by state Sen. Mike Foley. Its chief opponent, state Sen. Ernie Chambers, led a filibuster against it, called it "sheer nincompoopery" and pointed out that the bill's language of "bodily harm" could not possibly apply to a human zygote, which does not have a body.
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