Maryland State Senator William C. Smith (D) has introduced legislation that would effectively allow parents to neglect their child to the point of death with no penalty in the name of protecting “Pregnant Persons freedom”.
Senate Bill 669 very carefully makes exceptions for “perinatal” deaths that occur as a “failure to act”. Perinatal according to Oxford is defined as; “relating to the time, usually a number of weeks, immediately before and after birth.”
The bill says specifically, that the state may not levy penalties or investigations against individuals who have experienced “perinatal death related to a failure to act”.
A failure to act could also be referred to as a failure to care for. A death “related to a failure to act” could be a baby who died because they were not fed, clothed, or cared for.
Imagine a world where parents are allowed to allow their newborns to starve, or die of hypothermia as a result of improper clothing going unpunished. The idea is sickening.
Senate Bill 669 gets more and more sick the farther you read. It also allows mothers to abort their fetus at any point, even past viability if the fetus has a disability. The wording of the bill seems to allow such murders even up to the day the child is supposed to be
“Except otherwise provided in this subtitle the State may not interfere with a person’s decision to terminate the person’s own pregnancy: before the fetus is viable; or at ANY TIME during the woman’s pregnancy if the termination procedure is necessary to protect the life or health of the person OR; the fetus is affected by a genetic defect or serious deformity or abnormality.”
This section alone justifies a mountain of disgusting possibilities. Does your child have Down syndrome or another detectable neuro-divergency? Does this justify an abortion? What about minor genetic defects that would otherwise not affect the person’s quality of life?