WHAT WAS CLAIMED
It is legal to kill a newborn baby in California.
OUR VERDICT
False. Infanticide is illegal in California.
AAP FACTCHECK - Controversy surrounding a bill in California has resurfaced years after it passed into law, with an Australian social media user mischaracterising it as legalising infanticide.
Experts say it remains illegal in California to kill a newborn baby.
The false claim stems from a 2022 reproductive health law in California that decriminalises miscarriages, stillbirths and what are called "perinatal" deaths, which the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines as child deaths that occur between late pregnancy and shortly after birth.
The law was passed by the state in 2022 and explicitly states that it only decriminalises perinatal deaths due to circumstances that occur "in utero" (during pregnancy).
Misinformation claiming that the law legalised infanticide was debunked by Reuters in 2023, but more recently similar claims have been spreading on social media in Australia.
One Australian user claimed in an August Facebook post that California had made it "legal to kill a newborn baby".
The post includes a video with the caption "Breaking news" and includes a clip of a woman talking about the 2022 California bill as if it were recent.
"They just passed legislation in California that critics say could allow babies to be killed up to 28 days after birth," the woman says.
The woman goes on to claim the term perinatal "blurs the line between a baby inside the womb and a baby outside the womb" (timestamp 27 seconds).
"It [the law] says that a child isn't fully recognised until it's out of the perinatal stage, and it removes criminal penalties for any damage done during that time," the woman goes on to say.
"A society that says a newborn baby does not deserve protection has lost its moral compass," she says.
But the law does not remove criminal penalties for intentional damage inflicted on newborns.
It remains illegal to kill an infant in California under the state's existing criminal code.
Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, said the 2022 law protected those who have miscarriages or stillbirths due to pregnancy complications.
Prof Ziegler said it was passed after a woman was charged over a stillbirth, with Californian legislators wanting to make clear that the case shouldn't have been prosecuted.
"This was meant to be a clarifying bill," Prof Ziegler told AAP FactCheck.
"Infanticide, or homicide of a newborn child, is a crime in all cities, [it's] still a crime in California, and this bill didn't change that."
The Facebook post is correct that the law applies to what are called perinatal deaths. However, the legislation doesn't define perinatal, and US health bodies and pediatricians use several distinct definitions.
A 2016 paper published by the American Academy of Pediatrics canvassed three definitions of perinatal, ranging from late-term pregnancy to between 7 and 28 days after birth.
However, the 2022 law explicitly states that only perinatal deaths caused by circumstances occurring during a pregnancy (in utero) are decriminalised, not all perinatal deaths.
California politician Buffy Wicks added an amendment to the bill to clarify when the new provisions would apply.
The amendment changed the wording of the relevant clause to specify that a person could not be prosecuted for "perinatal death due to causes that occurred in utero".
Prof Ziegler said this means the law excluded cases of perinatal deaths where the infant was healthy, restricting protection to deaths caused by issues during pregnancy.
She said the public health motivation for the law change was to avoid discouraging women - particularly those from lower-income or minority communities - from seeking postnatal care for fear that they could be prosecuted over any adverse outcomes.
"The bill was meant to be doing more to have better outcomes for mothers and babies, not to authorise infanticide," Prof Ziegler said.
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