A Florida prisoner who is pregnant and charged with murder wants to be released because her unborn child is being "kept unjustly" and is innocent.
When the decision to imprison the mother, "the child didn't have a place at the table," attorney William Norris told AFP.
After fatally killing another lady while riding in an Uber in Miami last July, the mother, Natalia Harrell, 24, has been in jail for over seven months and is being charged with murder.
Harrell was around six weeks pregnant when the officers arrested her.
According to the petition submitted last week, Harrell had a revolver in her purse and "feared for her life and that of her pregnant child."
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The petition claims that despite being imprisoned in "deplorable conditions," the fetus "has not committed any crime" and will likely be born "on the concrete floor of the prison cell" if there is no relief.
According to the petition, they denied the mother the required medical attention while incarcerated.
Norris claimed that to file the petition on behalf of the fetus; the expectant father engaged him. According to the petition, "the unborn child is a person."
When cited for driving in a high-occupancy carpool lane in Texas last June, a pregnant woman argued that her unborn child was a second passenger.
Due to the timing of her case, just five days after the US Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade's protection of the right to an abortion, international press coverage came to light.
Norris claimed that his petition, which would also help Harrell, is "a consequence of that" rather than "a direct effect" of the Supreme Court's decision.
Norris told AFP, "It's interesting how civilization develops." An unborn child is becoming more widely accepted as a person.
