Sophie’s Law: protecting unborn babies rights

A young mother has lodged a petition with the Queensland Attorney General to have the law changed to recognise unborn babies from 30 weeks, in a court of law. The petition, named Sophie’s Law came about when Sarah Milosevic’s car was was hit by a drunk driver. Sarah was 39 weeks pregnant at the time of the collision and her baby Sophie, did not survive.

The driver received a fine of $950 and was suspended from driving for five months. The week Sarah should have been bringing her baby home, she was planning her funeral. According to the law, because Sophie was still born, she has no rights in a court of law. Sophie’s Mum, Sarah, wants to change this.

Sarah wants a new law to be passed that protects the right of any baby past 30 weeks to be considered as a human being. This includes protecting them from acts of violence and death by an unavoidable cause, such as a car accident. All babies born after 20 weeks are required to have a birth certificate, death certificate and a funeral. This is the law. The law should also extend to cases running through the courts, where a criminal act resulted in the death of a baby, who would otherwise have been born healthy.

Sophie had a birth certificate, a death certificate and a funeral, and was also included as part of the Queensland road toll for 2013. Yet the law does not recognise her death as part of the wrong done when the alcohol and drug affected driver crashed into Sarah that day, and his sentence reflects this.

Sarah’s petition is giving a voice to Sophie, and all the babies that didn’t make it because of an act of violence or criminal act, such as drink driving, dangerous or culpable driving. Sarah is clear that her petition is in no way connected to a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy.

The petition was lodged in January and had currently has close to 120,000 signatures. Sophie’s mother, Sarah is pushing for the law to be recognised across Australia, to fall into Federal jurisdiction. If you want to sign the petition, you can do that here.

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