BANGOR – After recently being told that 20-year-old Heather Fliegelman Sargent was the victim of a homicide, her family began to wonder whether the person who killed her also would be charged with the death of her unborn baby boy.

“We quickly learned that would not be the case,” said Heather Sargent’s grandfather, Gary Eckmann. “Certainly, the family was disappointed about that.”

Maine law does not address the rights of a fetus. Neither does federal law.

In the wake of her pregnant daughter Heather’s slaying, Cynthia Warner, who lives in Minnesota, hopes to eventually push for a federal law that would recognize unborn children as victims in cases of assault or murder that result in the harm or death of the fetus.

It is unclear whether anyone will make such a push in Maine because of the complex issues surrounding such a law.

Police say that Heather Sargent was stabbed to death inside her home at Rainbow Trailer Park in Bangor on Saturday, Jan. 4. She was eight months pregnant. The unborn baby also died. Her husband, 28-year-old Roscoe Sargent, turned himself in to federal authorities the following Monday. He has since been charged with his wife’s murder and is in custody at Penobscot County Jail.

Police also reportedly found several dead cats at the home. Whoever killed the cats could face charges under the state’s animal welfare act, while no charges will stem from the death of the unborn baby.

On a shrinking list

Maine is on a shrinking list of states in the country that have no laws governing the injury or death of a fetus. Fourteen states, the latest being Nebraska and Idaho, have adopted homicide laws that recognize fetuses as victims, regardless of their stage of development.

Twelve other states have homicide laws that recognize fetuses as victims, but only during certain stages of development.

A handful of other states, including New Hampshire, have various laws that enhance penalties against a person who harms or murders a pregnant woman.

Maine is one of 14 states that have no laws regarding the assault or death of a fetus.

Two years ago, a fetal-homicide law was submitted to the Legislature, according to Dick Traynor, head of Maine Right to Life, but the Judiciary Committee voted the bill “ought not to pass” and it was voted down by a substantial margin in the House and the Senate, he said.

Abortion argument

“Bottom line is, this comes down to the people in control and in this state, [and] that’s the Democrats,” Traynor said. “This issue becomes polarized by the abortion issue. They so greatly fear anything they see as eroding a smidgen of a woman’s right to abortion, but this issue has absolutely nothing to do with abortion.”

Pro-choice advocates, however see the fight for fetal rights as a direct undermining of Roe vs. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that legalized abortion. Today is the 30th anniversary of that Supreme Court decision.

“You are on a slippery slope when you begin to assign personhood rights to a fetus,” said Ruth Lockhart, executive director of the Mabel Wadsworth Women’s Health Center in Bangor. “The anti-abortion folks are constantly looking for anything to chip away at those rights. It’s been 30 years and we still have to fight every day to keep those rights.”

Lockhart understands the frustration that some people feel in cases like those of Heather Sargent, but said abortion rights and the fight for them are too important to risk any legislation that begins to offer rights to a fetus, regardless of the stage of development.

“I know some may think this is not an abortion rights issue, but it is,” she said.

A person who assaults or murders a pregnant woman must be treated and prosecuted like a person who assaults or kills a woman who is not pregnant, Lockhart said.

Proponents of fetal homicide laws note that such laws specifically exclude the actions of the mother and are aimed at a third person who intentionally harms the fetus.

Attacks spur fetal rights

Heated debates about fetal rights have occurred in legislative chambers across the country. Many times, states that have adopted fetal homicide laws have done so after high-profile murders or assaults on pregnant women.

In some cases, women in late stages of pregnancy have been assaulted and the fetus killed, while the mother has survived. In those cases, prosecutors can only charge the attacker with assault.

In Maine, the death of Heather Sargent and her unborn baby may prove to be the case that causes some lawmakers to take a harder look at the rights of fetuses.

“We’ve never really had an example to work with before,” Traynor said last week.

But with Democrats in charge of the House, the Senate and the executive branch, pro-life advocates may still have an uphill battle. Democrats traditionally are pro-choice, although Maine’s two Republican Senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, are also pro-choice.

Two years ago, while serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, Gov. John Baldacci voted against the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which would have made it a separate offense to cause the death of or bodily injury to an unborn child during the commission of a federal crime. Baldacci is a Democrat.

The bill passed the House by a vote of 254-172, but it died in the Senate.

It has been reintroduced this session.

On Monday, Lee Umphrey, Baldacci’s spokesman, said the governor voted against the measure because it separated the fetus and the mother and treated them as two individuals.

Umphrey said Baldacci favored a bill that would have enhanced penalties for anyone who injures or kills a pregnant woman. Asked if the governor would support such a bill in Maine, Umphrey said that although Baldacci would want to study the particulars, “his position would remain consistent.”

Heather Sargent’s family has no interest in getting involved in an abortion rights debate, said Eckmann.

“This is in no way an abortion debate to us,” he said. “This is about an unborn baby who was at a stage where he would have lived had he been born at that stage. That no one is responsible for that under Maine law is very disturbing to us. That’s what this is about to us.”