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What happens to a pregnant woman if she kills someone? What happens to the unborn child?

Do they wait to kill the soon-to-be mother until the child is born or do they just kill the mother and the child? According to law, that is.

14 Answers

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  • 9 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    Historically, (yes this has come up before) the court will wait until after the child is born to carry out the sentence.

    It was not uncommon in medieval times for convicted women under a death sentence to intentionally get themselves impregnated by a guard in order to buy themselves a 9 month reprieve.

  • 9 years ago

    Generally a murder sentence, from start to finish, will take much longer than a normal gestation (i.e. 9 months). Some people have been on Death Row for years waiting for their executions. If the mother is found guilty, they will wait until she has the child and either put it in a guardian's custody or put it up for adoption, or whatever the mother so chooses within her control. Even if she is guilty of a murder, she still has control over her body like any free woman, she just cannot feasibly keep the child with her at all times if she is serving a jail sentence.

  • Anonymous
    9 years ago

    If you were pregnant on the scheduled date of execution, they would delay the execution till after the birth. The baby would go to relatives or end up in a foster/adoptive home.

    But that's an unlikely scenario. The appeals process takes so long that some people spend a couple of decades on death row before they're finally executed. Some even die of natural causes before they exhaust their appeals. If you were pregnant at the time of sentencing, your baby would probably be in high school by the time of your execution.

  • Anonymous
    9 years ago

    Well, in many states, you often won't get the death penalty for killing a single person, unless there were aggravating circumstances (e.g. a murder committed during a robbery).

    But because the appeals process for people sentenced to death is so long and tedious, anyone who is pregnant when they are sentenced will have given birth by the time they are actually executed; their child might be in high school!

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  • 9 years ago

    The kid would likely be 20 before the sentence would be executed so it is mute point. Some prisons have nursery programs for mothers serving short sentences but for major crimes with years long sentences the child is placed in foster care or the care of other relatives.

  • 9 years ago

    The mother goes to prison and the baby is born there. If she's sentenced to death, then they wait for the baby to be born and after that kill the woman

  • 9 years ago

    If you are talking about the USA, from the time a woman would be charged, and sentenced the baby would be born and several years old before the mother would be executed.

  • 9 years ago

    She goes to jail. when the baby is born she either gives it up for adoption or to a responsible family member...maybe even the father. They do not execute pregnant women in any of the states. That would be as immoral as the person who killed someone.

  • 9 years ago

    It's funny you should ask because there was once a movie depicting the law in Italy.

    You see, it was told that as long as a woman is with child she cannot be sent to jail and only after the child is past breast feeding age.

    So, in this movie the woman stayed pregnant for years and years and years...

    .

  • bares
    Lv 4
    5 years ago

    This handed off a selection of of the time contained in the classic international. Invading armies did tend to kill all human beings. between the excuses (different than for the actuality that people tend to be cruel and nasty at circumstances) improve into that if every person improve into left alive, that person might sooner or later pick revenge. think of if after WWI, the Allies had exterminated all of their enemies alongside with women folk and young ones. There in all probability wouldnt have been a WWII could there, as no Hitler and no defeated, humiliated human beings desiring revenge. it is not a definite cruel punishment intentionally meted out. It improve into unquestionably the logical effect of the splitting up of the dominion into 2 halves. undergo in strategies, Samaria used to hitch the dominion. The view of those in Judea improve into that as Samaria had desperate to chop up off, in spite of handed off to them improve into their very very own fault. For a Jew or Christian, this verse might desire to recommend that because of the fact the Samarians had deserted God, that they had lost between the failings that made them sturdy, that they had chop up from Judea and so the two international places have been weaker on their very very own. the outcomes of this, while there have been maximum of effectual enemies approximately throughout those circumstances, have been very very nearly inevitable. they could get invaded, they could lose, and consequently the commonplace atrocities could ensue. Why is it 'rebelling against God?' nicely the splitting up of the dominion into north and south improve into alongside non secular as nicely as political lines. The north had continually been unhappy with the souths view that the non secular residing house improve into Jerusalem, contained in the temple. those contained in the south frequently seen those contained in the north as having too many impacts from the baal religions. So it may be organic for those contained in the south to think of that those contained in the north had deserted God, and see those invasions because of the fact the leads to their guilt. undergo in strategies, a selection of of the OT is how the human beings interpreted activities contained in the mild of their perception in God. each thing desires to be appeared at in that way.

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