Puerto Rico: Governor approves law recognizing fetuses as human beings

Puerto Rico Governor Jennifer González Colón announced Thursday the approval of a legislative measure that classifies the death of an unborn child as murder. According to the law, a fetus at any stage of gestation inside the maternal womb will be considered a living person.

The initiative is part of Senate Bill 923, a proposal that amends the Puerto Rico Penal Code to explicitly include the conceived within the definition of "human being" for purposes of the crime of homicide.

"A developing human being who has dignity"

The new legislation amends Article 92 of the Penal Code in order to complement Law 166-2025, known as the Keyshla Madlane Law. This regulation establishes, among other aspects, that intentionally and knowingly causing the death of a pregnant woman will be constituted as first degree murder, which will also include the loss of a fetus at any stage of gestation within the uterus.

"We are talking about an amendment to the Penal Code, which implies that when talking about human beings in the chapter on murder, it will also include human beings in their mothers' wombs. The message of this type of legislation is strong. It reaffirms this type of language in our public policy that in the womb of a pregnant woman there is not just anything, there is not a mere indefinable object, but a subject, a developing human being who has dignity and whose value is intrinsic to his human nature," said Senator Rodriguez Veve.

According to the official statement, the purpose is to "maintain coherence between civil and criminal provisions recognizing the unborn as human beings."