Born alive laws in the United States

The born alive rule was originally a principle at common law in England that was carried to the United States and other former colonies of the British Empire.

In the 19th century, some began to argue for legal recognition of the moment of conception as the beginning of a human being, basing their argument on growing awareness of the processes of pregnancy and fetal development.

[3][4][self-published source] They succeeded in drafting laws which criminalized abortion in all forms and made it punishable in secular courts.

Advances in the state of the art in medical science, including medical knowledge related to the viability of the fetus, and the ease with which the fetus can be observed in the womb as a living being, treated clinically as a human being, and (by certain stages) demonstrate neural and other processes considered as human, have led a number of jurisdictions – in particular in the United States – to supplant or abolish this common law principle.

By a majority decision, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that a viable fetus constituted a "person" for the purposes of vehicular homicide law.

In the opinion of the justices, "We think that the better rule is that infliction of perinatal injuries resulting in the death of a viable fetus, before or after it is born, is homicide.

The law defines "child in utero" as "a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb".

They reasoned that the U.S. Supreme Court had implicitly stated in various cases dealing with abortion, that destruction of a nonviable fetus did not constitute taking a human life.

[5] In People v. Davis (1994), the California Supreme Court examined this and concluded fetal viability was not essential for rights to exist.