According to the New Hampshire Union Leader, a “Vermont couple killed in a crossover highway accident Saturday were expecting their first child in about a month,” the woman’s boss said Monday. Amanda Murphy, 24, was eight months pregnant and engaged to Jason Timmons, 29. All three died when their SUV was struck by a pickup truck that crossed the median of Interstate 89 on December 9, 2013. News reports since the accident indicate that the driver of the truck was attempting suicide.
However, if vehicular homicide charges are brought, New Hampshire Attorney General Susan Morrell said they would not involve the unborn child. In its 2009 Lamy decision, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled that an unborn child must show spontaneous signs of life for someone to be prosecuted for homicide in the child’s death. The New Hampshire Legislature passed a fetal homicide law in 2012 but pro-abortion Governor John Lynch vetoed it, preventing enactment.
The New Hampshire accident is a sad reminder of the Bennington Babies and the terrible car crash that took the lives of unborn babies Kaleb and Harley Blair. The unborn twins were six months inutero and considered viable by medical professionals when the driver of the other car, who was under the influence of drugs prescribed to someone else, crashed into them head-on. Vermont law does not recognize that unborn children can be the victim of a crime and despite intense pro-life lobby efforts following the deaths of Kaleb and Harley, the VT Legislature refused to act. While penalties have been established in 36 states and by the federal government for criminal acts that cause injury to, or the death of, an unborn child, lawmakers refuse to address the shortcoming in Vermont laws. Naturally, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England lobbies against such legislation and pro-abortion lawmakers fear political clout at election time.
