MISSOURI INDEPENDENT

Last week, state Sen. Mike Moon, a Republican from Ash Grove, said he opposed any legislation that would leave the door open for abortions not medically necessary during an emergency. Specifically, he pointed to the rape and incest exceptions as unacceptable. 

“Republicans, and some Democrats, profess to be ‘protectors’ of life. I claim to be one of them,” he continued. “Because of this, I cannot support an effort which does not recognize all life as precious and worth saving and protecting.”

LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER

At the Wednesday rally, proponents of White’s bill handed out signs and print-outs explaining “why Kentucky needs HB 523.”

“In Kentucky, when a mother kills her born child, she is rightly charged with murder. But if she kills that same child just weeks earlier in the womb, the law shields her from prosecution. HB 523 seeks to end this double standard by ensuring that all human life — inside and outside the womb — is equally protected under the law,” their fliers said.

OKLAHOMA VOICE

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday in a bipartisan vote killed Senate Bill 456 by Sen. Dusty Deevers. The measure would have subjected women who receive an abortion to homicide charges and penalties including life in prison and death sentences. 

The bill would have also outlawed abortion-inducing drugs. It would not apply to cases where an abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother or to miscarriages. “Children are being murdered in our state,” said Deevers, while seeking to advance the bill.

KOSU

Sen. Dusty Deevers’ (R-Elgin) second attempt at legislation that would adjust the state’s definition of homicide to include abortion failed in the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday with a vote of six to two. The bill would have allowed women to be prosecuted.

Through Senate Bill 456, also known as the “Abolition of Abortion Act,” Deevers said he was seeking to extend equal protection to “preborn children” under the law. The bill would have removed two pieces of statute.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Oklahoma’s Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday voted 6-2 against advancing a proposal to allow murder charges against women who obtain abortions, with possible punishments including the death penalty and life in prison.

A week earlier, North Dakota’s House rejected a measure with similar features 77-16. Groups including the National Right to Life Committee and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America have for years been urging lawmakers not to consider those measures, arguing that women are often coerced into abortion and should not be punished.

WKYC

House Bill 1334 makes changes to Indiana's criminal code, allowing an "unborn child" to be named the victim of a murder. The bill also removes language that exempts certain abortions from being considered murder. A juvenile who got an abortion or otherwise caused the termination of a pregnancy could be waived to adult court for the crime of murder. 

An unborn child would include any fertilized egg, also effectively banning many fertility and IVF procedures. The bill does make exceptions if the fetus dies during a lifesaving treatment for a mother if medical staff tried to save the fetus as well. The bill also says spontaneous miscarriages do not count as murder.

11 ALIVE

Dunahoo filed HB 441, which extends freedoms to a fertilized egg like any other person. It is also known as the Georgia Prenatal Equal Protection Act. The bill would also impose stiffer penalties on those who have abortions and on those who carry them out. 

“This bill is all pro-life. It states that we’re basically taking conception as when life starts,” Dunahoo said. “We have turned Roe v. Wade around. Let’s go ahead and just bring back life to the unborn and give them hope that they can grow up to be president, to invent something or cure cancer.”

WUKY

House Bill 523, sponsored by Republican Reps. Richard White and Josh Calloway, would allow homicide charges to be brought in cases where “the victim is an unborn child.”

The bill invokes religious language, arguing “all innocent human life created in the image of God” should be equally protected under the laws from “fertilization to natural death.” Two exceptions include what the measure calls “spontaneous miscarriages” and “lawful medical procedures” to save the mother’s life.

CBS 4

State Representative Brent Money has proposed House Bill 2197, which aims to close what he describes as “the last legal loophole” in the state's abortion regulations.

In 2022, Texas enacted a law banning abortions in all circumstances except when the mother’s life is at risk. The law does not provide exemptions for cases of rape or incest. Currently, individuals who self-administer abortion medication are not subject to criminal prosecution. However, Money’s proposal would designate the fetus as a separate person, potentially leading to criminal charges for self-managed abortions.

NORTH DAKOTA MONITOR

House Bill 1373, referred to as a “personhood bill,” would define a human being to include an unborn child in state laws relating to murder, assault and wrongful death lawsuits. The bill would also establish that an unborn child exists at the moment of fertilization.

Rep. Lori VanWinkle, R-Minot, is the bill’s lead sponsor. She said the Legislature’s prior attempts to restrict abortion did not go far enough. “This is a commonsense bill that will close a loophole that has allowed the murder of innocent lives to continue in this state,” she told the House Human Services Committee during a Wednesday hearing on the bill.

TEXAS POLICY RESEARCH

Texas State Rep. Brent Money (R-Greenville) has introduced House Bill 2197 (HB 2197) which aims to criminalize self-induced abortions by removing a legal exception that currently shields women from prosecution. If passed, the bill would extend murder statutes to all individuals, including those who terminate their own pregnancies.

Under current Texas law, doctors and providers face severe penalties for performing or assisting in abortions, but women who self-induce abortions are not criminally prosecuted—a distinction State Rep. Money’s bill seeks to remove.

REASON

House Bill 1334 was introduced by State Rep. Lorissa Sweet (R–Indianapolis) on January 13. It has attracted two co-sponsors so far and has been referred to the Committee on Courts and Criminal Code.

Sweet’s bill would modify Indiana’s criminal code so that the phrase “human being” includes beings in utero and fertilized eggs. Human being “includes an unborn child at any stage of development from fertilization at the fusion of a human spermatozoon with a human ovum,” H.B. 1334 states.

JEZEBEL

All four bills establish fetal personhood by recognizing that “killing” an embryo or fetus is the same as killing a person. Consequently, someone who has an abortion could face homicide charges and the threat of the death penalty. 

Indiana’s bill, HB 1334, states that it “modifies the definition of ‘human being’ in the criminal code to include an unborn child.” The Foundation to Abolish Abortion praised the bill, introduced by co-author Rep. Lorissa Sweet, for combatting the “abortion genocide,” and thanked Sweet for being “on the political front lines of the fight against abortion.”