HB2394

Report Title:

Unborn Victims of Violence

Description:

Criminalizes acts of violence against unborn children.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES	H.B. NO.	2394
TWENTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE, 2002
STATE OF HAWAII

A BILL FOR AN ACT

RELATING TO UNBORN VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. The Hawaii Revised Statutes is amended by adding a new chapter to Title 37 to be appropriately designated and to read as follows:

"Chapter

UNBORN VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE

§ -1 Definitions. As used in this chapter, unless a different meaning is plainly required:

"Another" means the unborn child or any human being other than the defendant.

"Forcible felony" means any felonious act that involves a high risk of violence.

"Great bodily harm" includes permanent disability or disfigurement.

"Substantial bodily harm" includes, but is not limited to, the birth of the unborn child prior to thirty-seven weeks gestation if the child weighs two thousand five hundred grams or less at the time of birth. "Substantial bodily harm" does not include the inducement of the unborn child's birth when done for bona fide medical purposes.

"Unborn child" means the unborn offspring of a human being conceived, but not yet completely born.

"Whoever" does not include the pregnant woman whose unborn child is killed or injured.

"Without lawful justification" means acting under circumstances in which the use of lethal force is not legally justified.

§ -2 Murder of an unborn child. (1) A person commits the offense of murder of an unborn child if the person, without lawful justification, causes the death of an unborn child and the person:

(a) Intends to cause the death of or do great bodily harm to another or knows that the person's acts will cause the death of or do great bodily harm to another;

(b) Knows that the person's acts create a strong probability of death or great bodily harm to another;

(d) Perpetrates an act eminently dangerous to another and evinces a depraved mind, without regard for human or fetal life.

(2) Murder of an unborn child is a felony, the penalty for which shall be the same as the equivalent degree of murder.

§ -3 Voluntary manslaughter of an unborn child. (1) A person commits the offense of voluntary manslaughter of an unborn child if, without lawful justification, the person causes the death of an unborn child and the person:

(a) Intends to cause the death of another in an immediate response provoked by such words or acts of another as would provoke a person of ordinary self-control under like circumstances;

(b) Commits or attempts to commit a misdemeanor with such force or violence that the death of or great bodily harm to another was reasonably foreseeable; or

(c) Intends to cause the death of an unborn child because the person is coerced by threats made by someone other than the person's coconspirator and which cause the person to reasonably believe that the person's act is the only means of preventing imminent death to the person or another.

(2) Voluntary manslaughter of an unborn child is a class B felony.

§ -4 Involuntary manslaughter of an unborn child. (1) A person commits the offense of involuntary manslaughter of an unborn child if the person, without lawful justification, causes the death of an unborn child and the defendant:

(a) Creates an unreasonable risk by the person's culpable negligence and consciously takes a chance of causing death or great bodily harm to another;

(b) Shoots the mother of the unborn child with a firearm or other dangerous weapon as a result of negligently believing her to be an animal;

(d) Negligently permits any animal owned by and known by the defendant to have vicious propensities or to have caused great or substantial bodily harm in the past, to run uncontrolled off the defendant's premises, or negligently fails to keep that animal properly confined.

(2) Penalty. Involuntary manslaughter of an unborn child is a class C felony.

§ -5 Assault of an unborn child. (1) A person commits the offense of assault of an unborn child if the person, without legal justification, inflicts great or substantial bodily harm upon an unborn child, who is subsequently born alive, by intentionally or knowingly touching a pregnant woman without her consent.

(2) Assault of an unborn child resulting in serious bodily harm to the unborn child is a class B felony. Assault of an unborn child resulting in substantial bodily harm to the unborn child is a class C felony.

§ -6 Reckless endangerment of an unborn child. (1) A person commits the offense of reckless endangerment of an unborn child if the person, without legal justification, commits any act with the intent to cause fear in a pregnant woman of immediate bodily harm to herself or with the intent to cause fear in a pregnant woman of the death her unborn child.

(2) Assault of an unborn child is a misdemeanor.

§ -7 Exceptions. This chapter does not apply to:

(a) Acts which cause the death of an unborn child if those acts were committed during a legal abortion to which the pregnant woman consented; and

(b) Acts which are committed pursuant to usual and customary standards of medical practice during diagnostic testing or therapeutic treatment.

§ -8 Other convictions not barred. A prosecution for or conviction under this chapter is not a bar to conviction of or punishment for any other crime committed by the person as part of the same conduct."

SECTION 2. This Act does not affect rights and duties that matured, penalties that were incurred, and proceedings that were begun, before its effective date.

SECTION 3. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

INTRODUCED BY:	_____________________________