It's a Baby Stupid

There is an Orlando Sentinel article today that makes me want to puke. Two cars collided last weekend and a pregnant mother was injured causing her to lose her unborn baby.

Does the Orlando Sentinel article say unborn baby or baby? Nope, they call the child fetus. Over and over again. This is either PC or some idiot writer who never been a parent. This just hits a nerve with me, when my wife was pregnant with Daniel we called him Daniel, entoy(waray word for small boy), baby, cookie(before we knew he was a boy) and a few other names. My son was never a fetus.

The entire Orlando Sentinel article can be found at- http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/orl-lklfetus22062205jun22,0,315166.story?coll=orl-home-headlines

By Sherri M. Owens
Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted June 22, 2005

TAVARES -- If Donnie Clayborn is charged with vehicular homicide in a weekend crash that may have caused the death of a fetus, he could be the first in the five-county circuit to be prosecuted under the statute that makes such a killing a crime.

"I don't think we've ever prosecuted a vehicular one," said Ric Ridgway, chief assistant state attorney for the 5th Judicial Circuit, which covers Lake, Marion, Sumter, Hernando and Citrus counties.

According to the Florida Highway Patrol, Clayborn, 27, of Zephyrhills was driving a 1995 Ford Ranger pickup west on State Road 50 near Mascotte about 11 p.m. Sunday when he crossed into oncoming traffic. The truck collided with a 2005 Nissan driven by Jared Charnell, 24, of Orlando, who was heading east on S.R. 50 with his wife, Stephanie, 21, and their year-old daughter Daianaera.

Stephanie Charnell, who was five months pregnant, was flown to Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children & Women in Orlando because of a fatal injury to her fetus.

Troopers said they think Clayborn was under the influence of alcohol and drugs, though they are still waiting for toxicology reports from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Clayborn was not charged with DUI on the day of the crash because he likely would have quickly pleaded guilty, which would have prevented state officials from prosecuting him on more serious charges, Trooper Kim Miller said Tuesday.

Florida law defines vehicular homicide as "the killing of a human being, or the killing of a viable fetus by an injury to the mother, caused by the operation of a motor vehicle by another in a reckless manner . . ."

The law does not specify a gestational age that would determine a fetus' viability.Generally, however, doctors consider a fetus viable around 25 weeks' gestation.

At Florida Hospital Waterman in Tavares, for instance, doctors routinely intervene and give full resuscitation to babies delivered at 25 weeks gestation or greater, obstetrician/gynecologist Wendy Perrott said.

Perrott said there is a high mortality rate for babies born between 23 weeks and 24 weeks and 6 days, but parents of such children are given the option of allowing doctors to intervene. Babies born at less than 23 weeks -- before lungs have developed -- typically are not considered viable, she said.

Prosecutors are waiting for a report from the medical examiner that will detail the condition of the fetus and help determine whether it was viable, or "capable of meaningful life outside the womb through standard medical measures," as the statute reads.

The medical examiner will determine the age of the fetus and the likely cause of death before issuing a death certificate.

Prosecutors also are waiting for a "very detailed" homicide report from the Florida Highway Patrol, Ridgway said. "Those sometimes take awhile to get," he said. Once those reports are in, the State Attorney's Office will decide whether to charge Clayborn with vehicular homicide.

Ridgway said he recalls prosecuting a case about 18 years ago in which a pregnant store clerk was beaten so badly during a theft that her fetus died.