RICHMOND — A bill that would allow infant deaths similar to one in Campbell County to be prosecuted as homicides emerged from its second round in a Senate subcommittee Monday.
Sponsored by Sen. Steve Newman, R-Lynchburg, and several other legislators, the bill (SB 602) seeks to establish that “for the purposes of homicide and child abuse,” a baby’s ability to survive won’t be defined as whether it is still attached to its mother by an umbilical cord and placenta.
The legislation was requested by Campbell County law enforcement officials after a woman smothered her just-born child in December.
Existing state law doesn’t recognize a baby as being independently alive until the umbilical cord is cut or the placenta is detached from the mother, and Campbell County officials said they were frustrated at being unable to prosecute the woman.
The bill went through a fairly routine hearing before a Senate Courts subcommittee Monday. The panel restored the bill’s language as originally submitted by Newman, Sen. Robert Hurt, R-Chatham, and fully sponsored by eight other senators.
Monday’s hearing discarded an amendment that was introduced last week. That amendment sought to define a newborn baby’s life as “an independent and separate existence from the mother, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut or the placenta detached.”
Newman said he thought the bill could be approved without a separate review by legislators concerned about the cost of future prosecutions. New legislation that could potentially require state dollars to implement is getting an extra round of scrutiny.
An analysis by the state Department of Taxation says its financial impact “cannot be quantified,” but it “is likely to be small.”
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