Opinion ID: 2276127
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: viable fetus.

Text: Medical science has now advanced to the stage that the viability, health, and cause of a fetus's death can be determined. See Mary Lynn Kime, Hughes v. State: The Born Alive Rule Dies a Timely Death, 30 Tulsa L.J. 539, 543 (1995); Stephanie R. McCavitt, Note, The Born Alive Rule: A Proposed Change to the New York Law Based on Modern Medical Technology, 36 N.Y.L. Sch. L.Rev. 609, 636-37 (1991). Thus, the rationale for the born alive rule no longer exists. Hughes v. State, 868 P.2d 730, 732 (Okla.Crim.App.1994). Specifically, there is no need for it in the case sub judice because the post-mortem examination clearly proved that the unborn victim was a viable fetus who would have been born alive and completely normal except for the fatal brain injury sustained in the vehicular collision caused by Appellee. To quote Justice Holmes: It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past. Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Path of the Law, 10 Harv. L.Rev. 457, 469 (1896-97). The more enlightened cases have departed from the born alive rule in favor of recognizing that a viable fetus can be the victim of a homicide. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Cass, 392 Mass. 799, 467 N.E.2d 1324, 1325-26 (1984) (viable fetus is a person under a vehicular homicide statute criminalizing causing the death of another person); Hughes v. State, supra, at 731 (viable fetus is a human being under statute defining homicide as the killing of a human being); State v. Horne, 282 S.C. 444, 319 S.E.2d 703, 704 (1984) (viable fetus is a person within statute defining murder as the killing of any person). Viability was recognized in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973), as the compelling point at which the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother's womb, and the earliest time at which a state may proscribe consensual abortions. Id. at 163-64, 93 S.Ct. at 732. It is also the point at which the killing of an unborn child gives rise to a civil cause of action for wrongful death on behalf of the unborn child's estate. KRS 411.130. The most cogent reason, we believe, for holding that a viable unborn child is an entity within the meaning of the general word person is because, biologically speaking, such a child is, in fact, a presently existing person, a living human being. It should be pointed out that there is a definite medical distinction between the term embryo and the phrase viable fetus. The embryo is the fetus in its earliest stages of development, but the expression viable fetus means the child has reached such a state of development that it can presently live outside the female body as well as within it. A fetus generally becomes a viable child between the sixth and seventh month of its existence, although there are instances of younger infants being born and surviving. Mitchell v. Couch, Ky., 285 S.W.2d 901, 905 (1955) (citing William J. Cason, May Parents Maintain an Action for the Wrongful Death of an Unborn Child in Missouri? The Case for the Right of Action, 15 Mo. L.Rev. 211, 218 (June 1950)). See also Rice v. Rizk, Ky., 453 S.W.2d 732, 735 (1970). Whether a fetus was viable when killed is just as provable by competent evidence as whether a child was born alive or stillborn. See Jackson, 96 S.W.2d at 1016 (The testimony of the physicians together with that of the accused, establishes beyond cavil, doubt, or question that the child was born alive.). It is inherently illogical to recognize a viable fetus as a human being whose estate can sue for wrongful death and who cannot be consensually aborted except to preserve the life or health of the mother, but not as a human being whose life can be nonconsensually terminated without criminal consequences. Thus, we overrule Hollis and hold that a viable fetus is a human being for purposes of KRS 500.080(12) and the KRS Chapter 507 homicide statutes.