ABSTRACT
Because the fetus is not a person for purposes of the English common law, it is only when it is born alive that it achieves full legal status. There is no crime of feticide in England and Wales. Since healthcare professionals first made the link between acts and omission of the pregnant woman and the state of health of the resulting neonate, most pregnant woman have been keen to learn how to achieve optimal fetal health. Those cases where the baby is born alive but damaged by its mother's intentional acts are treated with abhorrence by sections of American society. The constitutional constraints on enacting new legislation force prosecutors to consider the application of existing laws to criminalize pregnant women who harm the fetus born alive. Accordingly, the second method has nothing to do with the born alive rule and involves proving that the injury occurred after the birth of the child.
