HOUSE BILL 141

48th legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - first session, 2007

INTRODUCED BY

Mary Helen Garcia

AN ACT

RELATING TO CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN; ESTABLISHING THE OFFENSE OF GIVING BIRTH TO A CHILD WHO HAS FETAL ALCOHOL SYNDROME.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO:

     Section 1. GIVING BIRTH TO A CHILD WHO HAS FETAL ALCOHOL SYNDROME.--

          A. Giving birth to a child who has fetal alcohol syndrome consists of giving birth to a child who is diagnosed by a confirmed medical finding as having fetal alcohol syndrome.

          B. As used in this section:

                (1) "birth" means the complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of a child, irrespective of the duration of pregnancy, after which the child breathes or shows any other evidence of life such as beating of the heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord or definite movement of voluntary muscles, whether or not the umbilical cord has been cut or the placenta is attached; and

                (2) "fetal alcohol syndrome" means a syndrome documented and confirmed by a physician's medical finding through current clinical tests that a child has:

                     (a) the three specific facial abnormalities of a smooth philtrum or underdeveloped groove between the nose and upper lip, small palpebral fissures or small longitudinal opening between the upper and lower eyelid and a thin vermillion border of the lip;

                      (b) prenatal or postnatal height or weight or both under the tenth percentile adjusted for age, sex, gestational age and race or ethnicity; and

                     (c) central nervous system abnormalities, including a head circumference under the tenth percentile after adjustment for age and sex, clinically meaningful brain abnormalities, motor problems or seizures not resulting from a postnatal insult or fever and global cognitive, functioning or intellectual deficits representing multiple domains of deficit below the third percentile with attention or hyperactivity.

          C. Whoever gives birth to a child who has fetal alcohol syndrome is guilty of a misdemeanor, unless the fetal alcohol syndrome results in the child's death, in which case, the child's mother is guilty of a second degree felony.

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