Pro-life advocates and a legislative analysis warned that Wicks’ bill would legalize infanticide as well as expand abortions. Attorney Wesley Smith has written how the bill would allow letting babies die as old as 6 weeks.
The bill would prohibit authorities from charging a mother for “actions or omissions” related to her pregnancy, “including miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion, or perinatal death.” Anyone who “aids or assists a pregnant person” also would be exempt from prosecution. Additionally, the bill would allow the woman to sue police and other authorities who arrest or charge her in such cases.
According to the California Family Council, the “perinatal death” language in the bill would exempt mothers who kill their newborn babies from prosecution.
“Although definitions of ‘perinatal death’ vary, all of them include the demise of newborns seven days or more after birth. Some definitions extend from weeks after birth up to a year,” the pro-life organization said.