Official Analysis by Pro-Abortion-Majority Committee Staff on California Abortion Bill Confirms What We've Been Saying – "'Perinatal Death' Language Could Lead to Unintended and Undesirable Conclusion"

I recently told you about California Assembly Bill 2223, which contains a provision preventing any person from being subject to civil or criminal liability “based on actions or omissions with respect to their . . . alleged pregnancy outcome, including . . . perinatal death.” You may recall that the “perinatal” period covers roughly from 28 weeks of pregnancy to 1-4 weeks post birth.

Based on our legal analysis of Assembly Bill 2223, and Maryland Bills 626 and 669, we informed you that the legislation – as proposed – could handicap the investigations into the deaths of newborns and effectively legalize infanticide.

Despite the plethora of “fact check” articles that have denied and downplayed the stark truth of what we’ve been saying about these bills, we now have an official analysis provided by the Chief Counsel for the pro-abortion majority California State Assembly Committee on Judiciary, stating that “the ‘perinatal death’ language could lead to an unintended and undesirable conclusion.” The analysis goes on to say that the bill

may not be sufficiently clear that ‘perinatal death’ is intended to be the consequence of a pregnancy complication. Thus, the bill could be interpreted to immunize a pregnant person from all criminal penalties for all pregnancy related outcomes, including the death of a newborn for any reason during the ‘perinatal’ period after birth, including a cause of death which is not attributable to pregnancy complications . . . .

Exactly. This is what we’ve been raising the alarm about for weeks. It could in fact effectively legalize infanticide.

Contrary to what a lot of the Left seems to believe these days – words actually matter. This is an important point that a lot of “fact-checkers” who have little to no legal training have seemed to miss.

As this official analysis highlights, what a bill’s author says that the bill is intended to do and what the language in a bill actually does are not always the same thing.

The author of Assembly Bill 2223 is now trying to slap a quick fix on the bill by adding some language that is also problematic. We are preparing legal analysis on the amendments that have been adopted, as it appears this bill will make its way through the California Assembly committees and over to the Senate committees.

We will keep you updated as we continue to fight this infanticide bill – and others like it – across the country.