Redefining Abortion as Homicide?
- The W3 Magazine
- 27 minutes ago
- 7 min read
A Coordinated Legal Strategy Emerging Across States
In Tennessee and Illinois, nearly identical legislative blueprints are being introduced under the banner of “equal protection.” On the surface, they are framed as abortion legislation. Structurally, they are something far more significant.
They seek to integrate abortion directly into state homicide law.
The effort is publicly supported and promoted by the Foundation to Abolish Abortion, an organization whose stated mission is to abolish abortion by extending criminal and civil statutes that protect born persons to preborn children from fertilization forward.
This is not regulatory reform. It is legal reclassification.
In Illinois, Senate Bill 3572, introduced by Neil Anderson, proposes repealing provisions that permit prenatal homicide and battery while extending state homicide, assault, and wrongful death laws to preborn children.
In Tennessee, House Bill 570, introduced by Jody Barrett, and Senate Bill 738, introduced by Mark Pody, amend thirteen separate titles of the Tennessee Code Annotated, including criminal offenses, criminal procedure, civil remedies, health professions, insurance, domestic relations, and corrections.
When legislation touches criminal homicide statutes and civil wrongful death frameworks simultaneously, it signals structural change. Not symbolic messaging. Not incremental policy adjustment.
A category shift.
The central question is no longer about regulation levels, gestational limits, or medical access. It is whether abortion should be treated as homicide under state law.
That distinction matters.
Because once something moves into homicide code, it triggers an entirely different legal ecosystem.
What “Equal Protection” Means in This Context
The phrase “equal protection” carries constitutional weight. It originates from the Fourteenth Amendment, which requires states to provide equal protection of the laws to all persons within their jurisdiction. Historically, this clause has been used to expand civil rights protections, invalidate discriminatory statutes, and reshape fundamental rights jurisprudence.
In the context of these bills, equal protection is being used differently.
The Foundation to Abolish Abortion and aligned lawmakers argue that preborn children qualify as persons under state law and should therefore receive the same legal protections already granted to born individuals. That includes protection under homicide statutes, assault statutes, and wrongful death laws.
The mechanism is straightforward in theory.
If the law says killing a born person is homicide, and if a preborn child is legally recognized as a person, then abortion becomes homicide under existing criminal code.
This approach does not create a new abortion specific crime. It absorbs abortion into already existing criminal classifications.
That distinction is critical.
Rather than regulating abortion as a medical procedure with exceptions, gestational thresholds, or professional standards, this framework relocates it into the same statutory category as murder and manslaughter.
In Tennessee, House Bill 570 amends Title 39, which defines criminal offenses, and Title 40, which governs criminal procedure. It also amends Title 29, which covers civil remedies such as wrongful death. The inclusion of these titles signals an intent to align abortion with both criminal prosecution and civil liability structures.
In Illinois, Senate Bill 3572 explicitly states that preborn children should be protected with the same criminal and civil laws protecting born persons by repealing provisions that permit prenatal homicide and battery.
This is a shift from regulation to classification.
And classification determines everything that follows.
Once an act is categorized as homicide, the legal consequences are not negotiated through health policy. They are processed through criminal law.
The debate, then, is not simply moral or medical. It is definitional.
Who qualifies as a person under state law?
And once that definition changes, what else changes with it?
Criminal Law Consequences: What Happens When Abortion Enters the Homicide Code
When an act is regulated, it exists within a compliance framework. When an act is classified as homicide, it exists within a criminal enforcement framework. That distinction is foundational.
In Tennessee, House Bill 570 amends Title 39, which defines criminal offenses, and Title 40, which governs criminal procedure. If abortion is integrated into homicide statutes, the enforcement authority shifts from regulatory boards and health agencies to prosecutors and courts.
This changes the risk landscape immediately.
First, prosecutorial discretion becomes central. District attorneys determine whether facts satisfy statutory elements of homicide. Charging decisions would not be administrative. They would be criminal.
Second, evidentiary standards shift. Medical records, telehealth communications, prescription data, and digital correspondence may become criminal evidence. Subpoenas and search warrants replace licensing inquiries.
Third, sentencing frameworks apply. Homicide statutes carry severe penalties, often including long term incarceration. Amendments to Title 41 in Tennessee, which governs correctional institutions, suggest the state anticipates downstream incarceration implications if enforcement occurs.
Fourth, civil liability expands in parallel. Title 29 in Tennessee governs wrongful death and special proceedings. If preborn children are treated as persons for purposes of wrongful death, civil litigation could accompany criminal prosecution. Separate standards of proof apply in civil court, increasing exposure.
In Illinois, Senate Bill 3572 follows the same model. By repealing provisions that permit prenatal homicide and battery and extending existing criminal statutes to preborn children, the bill relocates abortion from healthcare policy into violent crime code.
There is also the question of immunity.
Some current state abortion frameworks provide immunity to pregnant women. The equal protection model promoted by the Foundation to Abolish Abortion explicitly rejects that immunity. Its position is that equal protection requires identical liability across participants, including the mother, father, and provider.
If immunity provisions are removed, exposure expands beyond providers.
This is why classification matters.
Criminal law operates on deterrence, punishment, and state coercive power. Healthcare regulation operates on licensing, standards of care, and administrative oversight.
Moving abortion into homicide law transforms the mechanism of enforcement.
And that transformation extends beyond the courtroom.
Beyond Criminal Court: Systemwide Consequences
Reclassification does not stop at prosecution. When a legal category shifts inside criminal code, ripple effects extend across adjacent statutory systems.
In Tennessee, House Bill 570 amends not only criminal offenses and procedure, but also titles governing health professions, insurance, domestic relations, welfare, education, and state government administration.
That breadth signals secondary impacts.
Title 63 governs licensed healthcare professionals. If abortion is treated as homicide under state law, licensing boards may be required to suspend or revoke credentials based on criminal charges or convictions. Even investigations could trigger reporting requirements and administrative review. Professional liability insurance carriers would reassess risk exposure immediately.
Title 56 governs insurance regulation. If abortion becomes synonymous with homicide under statute, insurers may face questions about coverage limitations, reimbursement prohibitions, and policy exclusions. Risk models in underwriting often track criminal exposure. A definitional shift affects actuarial analysis.
Title 36 governs domestic relations. Recognition of personhood from fertilization raises questions in custody disputes, parental rights, and probate proceedings. If a preborn child qualifies as a person under wrongful death law, courts may confront new claims involving inheritance or damages.
Title 68 regulates public health systems and vital records. Definitions embedded in public health reporting could require revision. Vital statistics frameworks may be implicated if personhood definitions expand.
Title 71 governs welfare programs and family services. Eligibility calculations and benefit structures sometimes rely on household composition and dependent status. Legal reclassification may introduce administrative complexity.
In Illinois, Senate Bill 3572 follows the same equal protection model. The structure integrates homicide, assault, and wrongful death statutes. That integration does not operate in isolation. It intersects with regulatory systems that rely on consistent legal definitions.
The practical consequence is that redefining abortion as homicide is not a single lane policy shift. It is a cross code reorganization.
This is why legislative breadth matters.
When thirteen titles are amended in one state, and parallel bills are introduced in another, the architecture of state law is being tested.
The Interstate Dimension
Legislative diffusion across states is common. Once statutory language survives judicial review in one jurisdiction, other legislatures often adopt similar drafting.
If either Tennessee or Illinois successfully integrates abortion into homicide code and withstands constitutional challenge, the framework becomes portable. Advocacy organizations can point to precedent. Legislators can replicate language. Courts in other states may look to those decisions for persuasive authority.
If courts strike the laws down, the resulting opinions will define the constitutional boundary lines for how far states may go in redefining personhood within criminal law.
Either outcome shapes national policy.
Because once a state classifies abortion as homicide, the debate is no longer about access or regulation.
It becomes a question of criminal law, constitutional limits, and the scope of state power.
The Structural Question
At its core, the movement to redefine abortion as homicide is not simply a cultural flashpoint. It is a structural legal test.
The equal protection model advanced by the Foundation to Abolish Abortion and reflected in Tennessee’s House Bill 570 and Illinois Senate Bill 3572 does not operate within traditional regulatory boundaries. It seeks to relocate abortion into the same statutory category as murder and manslaughter.
That relocation changes the enforcement mechanism, the liability exposure, and the institutional actors involved.
Prosecutors replace regulators. Criminal courts replace licensing boards. Sentencing statutes replace compliance penalties.
Supporters argue this fulfills constitutional equal protection obligations by recognizing preborn children as persons under state law. Opponents argue it expands criminal liability into reproductive healthcare in a manner that raises due process and enforcement concerns.
What is clear is this: redefining abortion as homicide is not incremental policy adjustment. It is categorical reclassification.
And categorical reclassification triggers systemic consequence.
Whether these bills advance, stall, or are struck down in court, they represent a broader national effort to test the outer boundaries of state criminal law in the post Roe environment.
The debate will continue. The litigation will follow. The constitutional questions will be asked.
For now, the structural question remains.
If abortion is placed inside homicide code, what does that mean for the legal architecture of the state?
That is the issue beneath the headlines.
Even if you do not live in Tennessee or Illinois, pay attention. State level criminal code experiments rarely stay confined to one jurisdiction. Monitor legislative tracking systems in your own state. Engage respectfully with lawmakers. The architecture of criminal law shapes everyone.
Comments