13 WTHR - Indianapolis News |Death of unborn twins prompts push to change law

Death of unborn twins prompts push to change law

Cat Andersen/Eyewitness News

Indianapolis - The Marion County prosecutor wants to change the law to increase the punishment for the killing of unborn babies. The move follows the shooting of a pregnant bank teller. She survived the gunshots, but the twins she was carrying died.

Kevin Elmore's argued for a change in the law in front of Indiana's General Assembly in 1996, asking for higher penalties for feticide. His wife was eight months pregnant when she was shot in a drive by shooting, causing her to lose their baby. 

"I held her in my arms and my family held her in their arms and I went to see her get buried. You don't bury a fetus. You bury a baby," he said at the time.

In 1997 Indiana's law was changed so that a person causing the death of a fetus seven months or older could be charged with murder.

Last week, Katherin Shuffield was five months pregnant when she was shot and lost her unborn twins.

"I believe that as a state we ought to value the lives of those unborn babies," said Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi.

Brizzi is leading the charge to change the law again.

"Our law should recognize the fact that for the purpose of a criminal sanction that life begins at conception all the way to birth and if someone intentionally, knowingly takes that life that they ought to be responsible and accountable for murder," he said.

The change would mean higher penalties for those convicted of deliberately killing an unborn child at any stage. The charge would be raised to murder from feticide.

Henry Karlson, professor of criminal law at the Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis, says a change like that would likely raise questions.

"If you put it in the homicide statute you restart the philosophical question as to whether or not abortion is murder," said Karlson.

"It would be a stretch for them to link those two," said Brizzi, who argued that the wording of the law would rule out any confusion. "There is a specific exclusion for title 16 and title 16 is the exception carved out for reproductive rights," he said.

Experts in criminal law say with or without the exception, defining the crime as murder instead of feticide will raise the abortion debate at the Statehouse. They say there is another solution:

"Define the feticide as a separate crime, provide that it is a class a felony punishable for 20 to 50 years and provide that this punishment would be consecutive," said Karlson.

"That's certainly one way to do it. However for the purposes of what we want to accomplish today as we move forward I believe we ought to start at life begins at conception," said Brizzi.

Under current law, Shuffield's twins were not considered viable, so the person who shot her could not face a murder charge.

Currently the way Indiana's fetal homicide law is written, the man who shot Shuffield could face as little as two years for the deaths of her unborn twins. He could get as much as several decades to 100 years for attempting murder her.

If the law is changed the murder of an unborn fetus could carry a penalty of 45 to 65 years in prison. Currently Indiana is among 35 states with fetal homicide laws but not among the 18 states that allow strong penalties for killing an unborn child of any age.

Police are still looking for the gunman that robbed the Huntington Bank on April 22.