An Indiana bank robber may get away with murder, thanks to a state law that fails to value preborn babies at all stages.
Police are still looking for the man who shot teller Katherin Shuffield in the abdomen during a robbery at Huntington Bank on April 22. Shuffield, who was five months pregnant, is in serious condition; her twin daughters died.
“This is such a senseless and random crime, and it’s really devastated the entire community," said Curt Smith, president of the Indiana Family Institute. “Here are two young lives inside their mother in what should be the safest place they will be.”
Under Indiana law, the robber cannot be charged with murder in the twins' deaths. Only preborn babies whom the U.S. Supreme Court has defined as viable — those 22 weeks or older — are considered human beings.
Twenty-five states have fetal-homicide laws that allow homicide charges at any stage of gestation. Several states, including Indiana, have laws protecting preborn babies only at later stages.
“Although having some form of a fetal homicide law is a good thing, it would be better if they would have taken the approach of the other 25 states," said Maggie Datiles, staff attorney for Americans United for Life.
Smith is joining Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi in calling for a new law.
"I believe that as a state we ought to value the lives of those unborn babies," Brizzi told NBC's WTHR. "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."
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