Court rules parents can't sue for death of fetus\nINDIANAPOLIS -- Parents cannot recover damages in the death of an unborn child under Indiana case law even if the fetus might have been able to survive outside the womb, the state Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.\nThe case involved a wrongful death lawsuit filed in 2003 by an Evansville woman who miscarried after a car accident when she was six months pregnant.\nThe driver who was sued, however, argued the case must be dismissed because of a 2002 Indiana Supreme Court ruling that "only children born alive fall under Indiana's Child Wrongful Death Statute."\nVanderburgh Superior Court Judge Scott Bowers concurred and dismissed the suit.\nIn the 2002 case, which involved a crash that caused a woman to miscarry her 8- to 10-week-old fetus, the Supreme Court ruled the fetus did not fit the definition of "child" under Indiana's wrongful death law.\nThat ruling precludes all parents from bringing a wrongful death claim for the death of a fetus, whether it is viable outside the womb or not, Court of Appeals Judge Edward J. Najam wrote in the eight-page ruling.\nNajam noted, however, that this interpretation contradicts other Indiana laws, including one that makes it an act of murder to knowingly or intentionally kill a viable fetus.\nUnder the Supreme Court ruling, a person could be convicted of feticide but not be sued for civil damages, he noted.\n"This case is not about a zygote or an embryo or when life begins," Najam wrote, drawing a clear line between the case and the U.S. Supreme Court's abortion decision in Roe v. Wade.
Senate's budget might steer funds to Medicaid\nINDIANAPOLIS -- Senate Republicans hope to steer more money to schools and the Medicaid program than a House GOP state budget plan included, and their version could include a cigarette tax hike or other ways of increasing state revenues, a top Senate fiscal leader said Tuesday.\nSenate Appropriations Chairman Robert Meeks, R-LaGrange, said some details were still being worked out, but he plans to present a revised two-year budget bill Thursday and win endorsement that would send it to the full Senate for consideration.\nHe said he hoped it would include about $160 million in additional money in each of the next two years so schools and Medicaid could receive slightly greater spending increases than they would under the House-passed budget bill.\nThe House plan would increase overall spending on public schools by 0.7 percent in each of the next two years, but Meeks and Senate Tax Committee Chairman Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, want to raise those levels to 1 percent in the first year and 1.2 percent in the second year.\nMeeks said he also wants to increase spending on Medicaid by 5 percent in each of the next two years -- the same level proposed by Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels. The House plan assumed the Daniels administration could hold state cost increases in the health-care program for the poor and disabled to 3 percent each year.
