An important story will go unmentioned in the squalid trial of a woman named Dynel Lane. It is a story critical to understanding what took place in Longmont, Colo., on March 18, 2015.
That was the day when Lane allegedly used Craigslist to lure a seven-months-pregnant Michelle Wilkins to her home using the false promise of free maternity clothes. She stabbed Wilkins and knocked her out by choking her. Lane then allegedly cut open Wilkins’ abdomen and ripped her little girl, Aurora, from her womb. The baby, at 34 weeks’ gestation, probably survived for a short time, and Lane’s husband told police he saw the baby breathing when he came home to find this appalling scene. Wilkins did survive, and called 911 from Lane’s basement.
Lane now stands accused of the attempted murder of Wilkins and “wrongful termination of a pregnancy.” But she has not and will not be charged with the murder of the baby. Nor will jurors even be permitted to hear testimony about Aurora’s autopsy.
Lane’s attorney put the brutal legal position thus: Aurora “is not a victim in this case.” Testimony about the baby that was healthy and living but is now dead would be “prejudicial” to her client.
From the perspective of Colorado law, the attorney is, unfortunately, correct. For this, residents can thank Colorado’s branches of Planned Parenthood and NARAL, and the Democratic legislators they have in their pockets.
In 2013, Democrats in the state legislature blocked a bill that would have criminalized fetal homicide. Many other states have such laws, but Colorado Democrats blocked this one out of ideological concerns about what sort of statement it might send about abortion rights, which have become virtually sacramental on the political Left.
In May 2015, Colorado Democrats doubled down with a revolting vote just two months after the hideous death of baby Aurora. After the Republican-controlled state Senate passed a bill criminalizing fetal homicide, with the support of some pro-abortion-choice Republican legislators, NARAL and Planned Parenthood cheered as Democrats in the state House killed it in committee along party lines.
They claimed falsely that the law would be wielded against women who had abortions or miscarriages. In fact, such laws exist in other states and in the federal code, and are never used for such ends. NARAL Colorado actually tweeted that the bill “contains harsh penalties on anyone who ends a pregnancy against mothers [sic] wishes.”
Well, yes, that the point, isn’t it? The mother’s wish is supposedly what “pro-choice” means.
According to one neonatologist interviewed at the time by the Denver Post, a baby at 34 weeks’ gestation has nearly a 100 percent chance of surviving a horrific incident of the sort Aurora went through, if given proper medical care. Her killer will never be forced to confront the evidence against her, or be sentenced for the death of an innocent child.
This case involves a wrong that cries out to heaven, and it exposes the grotesque calculus of the no-compromise abortion lobby. It is a stain on our civilization. There was a living breathing baby, which died because of an act of gross barbarity, and the law will do nothing about it.
