Could ‘pregnancy outcomes’ language excuse crimes like this ‘gruesome’ infanticide?

A South Carolina mother has been accused of doing the unthinkable: stabbing her newborn infant to death with a letter opener as he was born and in the moments that followed.

Authorities say An T. Ngo, 31, fatally stabbed her newborn boy with a “long, metal letter opener” while she was giving birth to him in her home in Easley, South Carolina, on March 7. She then allegedly placed the baby’s lifeless, bloody body in a trash bag and left it outside her door. Her boyfriend later called police, and the child was declared dead at the scene.

“I’ll be honest with you. I’ve been doing this for over two and-a-half decades and I have never seen anything this gruesome. I’ve never seen anything this bad,” Easley Police Chief Brandon Liner said at a press conference. “It was very apparent that Miss Ngo is the one who tragically murdered this child.”

“We will speak for this baby,” he added. “We will make sure that this baby will receive justice. It didn’t have a chance at life. Not long.”

Ngo is charged with homicide by child abuse and has been denied bail. The horrific news story is as shocking as it is gruesome, yet there are laws on the books in some states that some experts fear could potentially excuse mothers like this one for their alleged crimes by defining a baby’s death as a mere ‘pregnancy outcome.’

“Pregnancy Outcomes”

Though South Carolina, where the crime occurred, has laws protecting most preborn children from abortion, laws in other states aren’t so clear.

In 2022, Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed House Bill 22-1279 into law, making abortion a “right” and allowing women to make their own decisions regarding “pregnancy outcomes.” Experts warn that this language is vague, and could encompass things like birth, miscarriage, abortion, and even death after birth. Since these “outcomes” are undefined, a post-birth death that is caused deliberately or even by negligence is not excluded.

Michigan’s Prop 3, passed in 2022, also includes similar troubling language. It prohibits the state from “penaliz[ing], prosecut[ing], or otherwise tak[ing] adverse action against an individual based on their actual, potential, perceived, or alleged pregnancy outcomes.” The state is prevented from filing charges against anyone because of a “pregnancy outcome.” Again, these “outcomes” are undefined, leading some to speculate that they could include an infant death caused deliberately.

Likewise, California’s Reproductive Health Act contains the same vague language, saying:

Notwithstanding any other law, a person shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability or penalty, or otherwise deprived of their rights under this article, based on their actions or omissions with respect to their pregnancy or actual, potential, or alleged pregnancy outcome, including miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion, or perinatal death due to causes that occurred in utero.

The perinatal period is defined by the California Welfare & Institutions Code as being “the period from the establishment of pregnancy to one month following delivery,” which some say leaves a loophole allowing for death after birth or a failed abortion.

“These amendments added ‘perinatal death due to pregnancy related cause,’” previously explained Theresa Brennan, Esq., president of Right to Life League. She went on:

The amendments do not address the fact that the bill would continue to chill reporting and investigations of ANY perinatal death because, whether that death was ‘pregnancy related’ or not could only be determined after investigation. If it turned out the infant’s death was ‘pregnancy related,’ a term which is undefined, overbroad, and meaningless since even birth is pregnancy related, an immediate private cause of action (with damages starting at $25,000 and attorney’s fees) could be taken against the person who did the investigation.

Supporters of these laws have decried claims that they would include infanticide, calling them “absurd.” But such a claim isn’t a stretch; pro-lifers don’t have to look far to see that this is exactly what is happening elsewhere, as abortion advocates are fighting to free women who have been convicted of murdering their infants.

Push to overlook infanticide in Latin America

Live Action News has covered the stories of women in El Salvador who have been convicted for murdering their newborns after birth. These infants experienced violent deaths, including one who was strangled, one who was thrown in a septic tank, and another who was brutally stabbed. More details about these shocking murders can be found here.

Despite overwhelming evidence, including eyewitness testimony implicating the mothers in the respective crimes, pro-abortion groups including the Center for Reproductive Rights and its affiliate in El Salvador — the Citizens’ Group for Decriminalization of Therapeutic, Ethical and Eugenic Abortion — are rallying around these women, claiming that they “have suffered pregnancy-related complications and miscarriages” and are thus wrongly imprisoned for illegal abortions.

“The facts of each case, corroborated by scientific and documentary evidence as well as witnesses’ testimony, all of which are known to the Center for Reproductive Rights and its affiliate, have in every instance been deliberately distorted to conceal or minimize the death of a newborn child at the hands of his or her mother,” explained Ligia De Jesus Castaldi, a professor at Ave Maria School of Law. “The aggravated homicide of newborn infants ha[s] been mischaracterized as ‘abortion,’ ‘miscarriage’ or ‘obstetric emergency.’” (emphasis added)

The push to recharacterize infanticide in El Salvador as ‘miscarriage’ or ‘abortion’ is a cautionary tale of what could occur in the United States, especially in pro-abortion states that have implemented ‘pregnancy outcome’ language in their laws.

As abortion advocates continue to push the envelope on abortion, in many cases allowing abortion all the way up until birth, it’s not a stretch to see how women like Ngo could one day receive no penalty for murdering an infant as it’s being born. If the intended ‘pregnancy outcome’ in an abortion is a dead baby — an act that is tragically legal — abortion advocates may soon rally for the death of that same baby after birth.