Every life deserves justice

Currently, in South Australia, the loss of an in-utero baby due to a criminal act is legally recognised as only an injury to the mother. There is no validation for the profound loss and grief of the mother, father, extended family, and friends.

On 30 November 2022, the Hon Sarah Game MLC introduced the Statutes Amendment (Loss of Foetus) Bill 2022 into the South Australian Parliament.

Ms Game’s Bill honours the foetus as a separate victim in its own right. It allows for compensation from the Victims of Crime Fund. Family members, in addition to the mother, will have the right to provide victim impact statements.

Following similar legislation implemented in NSW, known as Zoey’s Law, Ms Game seeks justice for those who suffer the loss of an in-utero baby caused not through choice, illness or disease but through malice, recklessness or the negligence of others. Justice for in-utero deaths that result from events such as rape, criminal neglect, assault, and dangerous driving.

Ms Game's Bill is about giving women and families the right to recognise, by law, the loss of a life taken by criminal acts beyond their control.

Brodie Donegan’s daughter Zoe passed away in-utero after a collision caused by a drug-affected driver while Brodie was walking down a street. In 2013 South Australian man John Ceruto hit a Stobie pole at Woodville Park while driving naked, drunk, and with drugs in his system, killing his fiancé Lisa Smith and her unborn child named Chase. These dead babies became part of an itemised list of recorded injuries to the mother.

Ms Game has presented her Bill in honour of Zoe, Brodie Donegan’s baby, and to all the unnamed children and unknown pregnant women who never met their expected child.

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