Lawyer: Shooting Fetus Isn’t A Crime Court Hears Arguments In Mother’s Attack On Unborn Child

There are no legal precedents in Canada for what Brenda Drummond did: fire a rifle into her womb in an attempt to kill her soon-to-be-born child.

In a country where abortion is legal and a fetus has no rights, prosecutors struggled Thursday to convince a court that she committed a crime. Anti-abortion groups are closely monitoring the case.

Drummond, 28, was charged with attempted murder June 7, eight days after giving birth to a boy in the bathroom of her home near Ottawa.

A brain scan revealed that the ailing infant had a pellet in his brain, and the baby survived surgery to remove it. He suffered no serious permanent damage.

Drummond’s lawyer went before an Ontario judge Wednesday to argue that the criminal charge should be dropped.

“If you take the crown’s case at its highest level - yes, she was attempting to kill the fetus - well, that is not an offense under Canadian law,” said the lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon.

Greenspon said Drummond was attempting to cause a miscarriage on May 28 when she used a rifle to fire a pellet into her vagina while her daughters, 3 and 7, played elsewhere in their home. The baby was born two days later.

“If she had been successful, this would not have been a crime - period,” Greenspon said.

Greenspon told Judge Inger Hansen there is no case law supporting charges of attempted murder against a woman who delivered a child that survived.

But prosecutor John Waugh said Thursday the attempted murder charge was justified under a law stating that a homicide occurs when someone causes an injury to a child before or during birth that leads to the child’s death after birth.

“Had Johnathan died during surgery to remove that pellet, it would have been murder,” Waugh said.

Arguments are expected to continue today, and the judge is likely to take the case under review, possibly for weeks, before issuing a decision.

Drummond, a postal worker, has been on bail but confined to an Ottawa psychiatric hospital since June. Johnathan returned home to his father and two sisters.

Greenspon introduced case law dating back to 1832 supporting the contention that a fetus does not become a human being until it leaves its mother’s body.

“You can’t give rights to the fetus without taking them away from the mom,” he said.

Under current Canadian law, a fetus can be legally aborted up to full term, although most doctors won’t do the procedure after 20 weeks.

Karen Murawsky, spokeswoman for the Campaign Life Coalition, said the national anti-abortion group is following the case intently and hopes it will rekindle debate about legal protection for fetuses.

“The lawyers are arguing there’s no victim here,” she said in a telephone interview. “Common sense has to prevail. Of course there’s a victim. … The child obviously could have died.”