TALLAHASSEE, Florida (LifeSiteNews) – Florida Republicans introduced legislation that would make the loss of preborn children potentially subject to wrongful death lawsuits, extending the ability to protect and recognize innocent life in the same way as is provided for after birth.

The bill, introduced in both chambers of the state legislature, would amend Florida law’s existing wrongful death provisions to apply to an “unborn child” in the same manner that it does born children, with the term defined as a “member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.”

It clarifies that such suits “may not be brought against the mother of the unborn child or against a medical provider for lawful medical care provided in compliance with the applicable standard of care,” meaning that mothers who violate abortion bans could not be charged (which is consistent with most pro-life laws), or could abortionists whose abortions fall within the exceptions of existing law. But it would potentially open up another recourse in the case of doctors who neglect to give basic care to newborns delivered alive.

WUSF Public Media reported that on Tuesday the Senate version of the bill passed the Florida Senate Judiciary Committee 5-4, but may face an uphill battle in the rest of the legislature, as the proposal has been introduced and failed in previous sessions.

Democrats claimed the change would subject abortionists to malicious lawsuits by relatives of abortion seekers, but the lead sponsor, Republican state Sen. Erin Grall, said it would simply “codify and make clear in our Wrongful Death Act that, in fact, these children are covered if they should die at the fault of someone else.”

Most abortions are illegal in Florida, thanks to both a 15-week abortion ban and a heartbeat-based abortion ban enacted much earlier but not allowed to take effect until April 2024, when the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the Florida Constitution contains no “right” to abortion that would invalidate them. Until then, there was significant concern that the Sunshine State’s lack of protection for preborn babies would make it a magnet for residents of more protective states in the region that sought to dispose of children.

The abortion lobby then attempted to invalidate those and every other state pro-life law with a ballot initiative that would add a “right” to abortion to the constitution, but it failed last November, ending a winning streak such amendments had enjoyed in the rest of the country.

Florida is one of 12 states to currently ban all or most abortions. But the abortion lobby continues to work feverishly to preserve abortion “access” via deregulated interstate distribution of abortion pills, legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel, constructing new abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states, making liberal states sanctuaries for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors, and enshrining abortion “rights” in state constitutions.