Puerto Rico legally recognized unborn children as human beings
With a legal amendment in criminal law, the protection of unborn life is to be strengthened and the regulations on violence against pregnant women are to be legally unified.
The Governor of Puerto Rico, Jenniffer González Colón, has signed a law that explicitly recognizes unborn children as human beings in criminal law. The aim of the new regulation is to create greater consistency between civil and criminal law provisions and to more clearly define the legal protection of unborn life. This was reported by Catholic Vote. An amendment was made to the murder paragraph in the Criminal Code. The new regulation expands an existing provision: According to this, the intentional killing of a pregnant woman will now be considered first-degree murder if the unborn child is also killed, regardless of its stage of development.
The previous legal situation stemmed from the case of a pregnant woman whose violent death in 2021 caused nationwide dismay. With the newly adopted regulation, criminal law is being adapted to this expanded concept of protection, and the unborn child is explicitly recognized as independently worthy of protection.
Previously, UOJ reported that a court stopped the deportation of a Coptic family father in Münster. >
