SB 384

This bill requires any health care provider present at the time an abortion or attempted abortion results in a child born alive to exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as a reasonably diligent and conscientious health care provider would render to any other child born alive at the same gestational age and to ensure that the child born alive is immediately transported and admitted to a hospital. A health care provider or an employee of a hospital, physician’s office, or clinic where abortions are performed or induced who has knowledge of a failure to comply with the requirements of the bill must immediately report the failure to an appropriate law enforcement agency. Any person who violates the requirement to exercise professional skill, care, and diligence or to ensure the child is transported and admitted to a hospital is guilty of a felony with a penalty of a fine not to exceed $10,000, imprisonment not to exceed six years, or both. The mother of the child born alive, however, may not be prosecuted. The bill specifies that a woman upon whom an abortion was performed or attempted may bring a claim for damages, including damages for personal injury and emotional and psychological distress, against a person who violates or attempts to violate the requirements of the bill.

The bill also makes intentionally causing the death of a child born alive as a result of an abortion or an attempted abortion a felony with a penalty of life imprisonment, which is the same penalty as first-degree intentional homicide. The mother of the child born alive may not be prosecuted under this provision in the bill.

Under current law, an individual who undergoes a live birth is considered born alive. “Live birth” is defined as the complete expulsion or extraction from his or her mother, of a human being, at any stage of development, who, after the expulsion or extraction, breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut and whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, a cesarean section, or an abortion. Under current law, whoever is born alive as a result of an abortion is considered to have the same legal status and legal rights as a human being at any point after the human being undergoes a live birth as the result of natural or induced labor or a cesarean section.

Because this bill creates a new crime or revises a penalty for an existing crime, the Joint Review Committee on Criminal Penalties may be requested to prepare a report.