Five Minutes Earlier Why the Tragedy in Perry is an Indictment of the Pro-Life Establishment
Why the Tragedy in Perry is an Indictment of the Pro-Life Establishment
A baby girl is dead in Perry, Iowa.
According to media reports, 20-year-old Stephanie Ubaldo gave birth in the bathroom of the daycare where she worked. Investigators allege the baby was born alive and crying. Ubaldo allegedly told investigators that she intentionally injured the baby’s face in an effort to stop her from crying and then placed her in a trash bag. The child was reportedly estimated at 32 to 36 weeks gestation, and her death was ruled a homicide. Ubaldo has been charged with first-degree murder. She has not been convicted, and the allegations must be proved in court.
It is horrifying.
But it raises a question Iowa’s pro-life establishment needs to answer.
What if she had killed her daughter five minutes sooner?
Not five months earlier.
Five minutes.
Same mother. Same daughter. Same DNA. Same level of development. Same intent to take her life.
What changed?
Morally, nothing.
Yet legally, those five minutes make all the difference. Five minutes earlier and Stephanie Ubaldo would have immunity and impunity under Iowa’s current laws.
Earlier this year, Rep. Zach Dieken introduced HF2316. The bill’s purpose was explicit: to ensure that unborn children were protected from homicide and assault by “the same criminal and civil laws protecting all other persons.” It defined unborn children as human beings and sought to apply Iowa’s homicide laws equally when they were the victims.
House Judiciary Chairman Steve Holt killed the bill, and he publicly explained why.
Holt wrote that under HF2316, women who have abortions could be subject to first-degree murder charges. His response was simple: “I cannot support such an approach.” He went on to argue against subjecting women who obtain abortions to arrest, trial and imprisonment.
Now look at Perry.
A woman allegedly intentionally killed her daughter after birth, and Iowa has charged her with first-degree murder.
So move the clock backward five minutes.
What changed?
That question matters because Holt’s objection was not that the unborn child is biologically something other than a human being. His objection was that applying homicide law equally could result in prosecuting the woman who kills her unborn child.
The Perry case strips away the abstraction.
According to the reporting, this was a baby estimated at 32 to 36 weeks gestation who was born alive and cried.
Take that exact child and move the alleged killing five minutes earlier.
Why should the law suddenly view the person who intentionally killed her differently?
Rep. Jon Dunwell’s HF2332 makes the distinction even more explicit.
Dunwell, who now serves as Director of Outreach and Engagement for The FAMiLY Leader, introduced HF2332 as legislation addressing elective abortion and feticide. The FAMiLY Leader described the proposal as strengthening protections for unborn children while “shielding women from prosecution.”
The actual bill said:
“A pregnant woman shall not be prosecuted for the death or serious injury of her unborn child.”
That was not something critics read into the legislation. It was written into the bill.
Now put HF2332 beside Perry.
If the allegations are proved, Ubaldo intentionally killed her daughter after birth. She faces a first-degree murder charge.
Move the act five minutes earlier, while the same daughter is still inside her mother, and Dunwell’s bill explicitly says the pregnant woman shall not be prosecuted for the child’s death.
That is the issue.
What happened during those five minutes?
Did the child become human?
No.
Did her DNA change?
No.
Did she suddenly become her mother’s daughter?
No.
Did her moral value increase as she passed through the birth canal?
No.
Did she have the imago Dei imparted to her as she passed through the birth canal?
No.
The child changed location.
That is why saying “life begins at conception” is not enough to resolve the question.
Holt says he believes unborn children should be protected, but he has objected to legislation when equal application of homicide law would mean prosecuting women.
Dunwell introduced legislation that increased penalties for killing unborn children while expressly excluding the pregnant woman from prosecution for the death of her own unborn child.
Perry gives us a concrete case against which to test that distinction.
If this little girl was worthy of justice five minutes after birth, what characteristic did she lack five minutes before birth that would justify a different standard of accountability for intentionally killing her?
Her humanity did not begin when she cried.
Her identity did not begin when someone heard her cry.
Her value did not begin when she crossed the birth canal.
Was it something that changed with the mother? Did she suddenly acquire culpability when her daughter was born?
If intentionally killing her daughter after birth makes a mother answerable for her death, what happened five minutes earlier that would erase that culpability?
This is the question Steve Holt, Jon Dunwell, and Iowa’s pro-life establishment need to answer:
What happened in those five minutes?
Because whatever changed physically, the little girl did not become more human, more valuable, or more deserving of justice. She was made in the image of God from conception. And that does not merely entitle her to the recognition that she is alive. It demands the protection of equal justice.
