A year ago, my daughter Brynn was killed before she was born when a driver struck our car. She did not die instantly — she died from the impact a short time later. When we sought justice, we learned something most people don’t know until it happens to them: Pennsylvania law could not charge her death as a homicide.

Pennsylvania’s Crimes Against the Unborn Child Act says that causing the death of an unborn child intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently is criminal homicide of an unborn child. But the law only created two charges to go with that definition: murder of an unborn child (which requires intent) and voluntary manslaughter of an unborn child (which requires the defendant to have been provoked into a sudden, intense passion). There is no involuntary manslaughter charge for an unborn child, and no homicide-by-vehicle charge for an unborn child — even though both of those charges exist, and require no proof of intent at all, when the victim is a person who was already born.

In our case, the driver who killed Brynn ran a red light full speed, did not know us, and was not acting out of rage. She had, in fact, been arrested earlier that same day, only to strike our car a short time later. There was no evidence of intent to kill, and no provocation. Under current Pennsylvania law, that meant there was no homicide charge available for Brynn’s death at all. The driver got away with a traffic violation ticket. This is not ok.

This is not a hypothetical gap. Other states have already closed it. Ohio’s law recognizes the killing of an unborn child as covering “aggravated murder, murder, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, negligent homicide, aggravated vehicular homicide, and vehicular homicide” — the full range that applies to born victims. Wisconsin, Indiana, Kansas, and others have similar structures. Pennsylvania has not caught up.

We are asking the Pennsylvania General Assembly to amend Title 18 to add:
 1. Involuntary Manslaughter of an Unborn Child — for deaths caused by reckless or grossly negligent conduct, with no intent required.
 2. Homicide by Vehicle of an Unborn Child — mirroring the existing homicide-by-vehicle statute for born victims, focused on traffic violations that cause death, not on intent.

No parent should have to hear what we heard: that the law has no place for their child’s death. We are not asking for harsher punishment across the board — we are asking for the same basic categories of accountability that already exist for every other victim in Pennsylvania, extended to unborn children killed through negligence or recklessness.

We know we are not the only family this has happened to. If you believe Pennsylvania law should recognize all of the ways an unborn child’s life can be taken — not just the rare cases involving intent — please sign and share this petition in memory of Brynn, and of every other child failed by this gap.