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Fetus determined to be part of mother's body

But the Connecticut Supreme Court said that doesn't necessarily mean it has no independent existence.

By Tanya Albert, amednews staff. June 2/9, 2003.

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Connecticut's high court ruled that a fetus is part of the mother's body, opening the door for serious assault charges against anyone who attacks it. The implications for abortion law are unclear.

In a concurring opinion in the May 13 Supreme Court decision, one justice was quick to point out that the ruling doesn't suggest that the court "concluded that a fetus may not have its own independent existence." He said a fetus may be both "a part of its mother as well as its own individual being."

Attorneys for the state say they don't expect the ruling to affect abortion law in Connecticut.

State law defines a person as someone who is born alive. To charge someone with murder, he or she has to kill a person who is alive. This case doesn't change that definition, said Timothy J. Sugrue, a senior assistant state's attorney who argued the case for the state.

What the opinion in State of Connecticut v. Edwin Sandoval does, however, is allow prosecutors to charge people who attack fetuses with a more serious crime.

"Connecticut law makes it a more serious crime if you try to chop someone's arm off or try to destroy or harm another organ or part of the body," Sugrue said. "The court said the fetus is a body part."

But anti-abortion groups say some of the language in the ruling could be a factor in future debates over whether to change Connecticut laws involving fetuses, particularly in efforts to get a fetal homicide law passed.

"It's sort of muddled here in Connecticut," said Bill O'Brien, legislative vice president for the Connecticut Right to Life Corp. "But these kind of cases keep coming up. We plan to keep trying to get legislation to overturn the born-alive rule."