223 Man sentenced for killing a fetus

Today’s Columbus Dispatch reported “[a Columbus man] was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his part in the premature birth and subsequent death of a girl.” Aggravated murder charges were reduced to felonious assault and involuntary manslaughter according to the report. He struck a seven months pregnant woman with a pipe when she intervened to stop a fight between him and her husband.

It still seems odd--no bizarre--that in a clinic with a licensed doctor causing the interruption of the child’s life support system in the mother, the little girl’s death would have been legal and no one would have been charged anything, except for an invoice for services.

The couple’s first child, a son, had died of SIDS the year before.