If the Born Alive Infants Protection Act was signed into law on the federal level, why is it needed in individual states?
In general, it is best to think of federal law and state law as two separate realms and to independently evaluate the adequacy of each. To begin, most crimes of violence are governed exclusively by state law, not federal law. Furthermore, the federal BAIPA only establishes that when the terms “person,” “human being,” “child,” or “individual” appear in a federal law or regulation, they must be construed to include a “born-alive infant,” and BAIPA provides an explicit definition of what it means to be a “born-alive infant.” The federal BAIPA applies everywhere in the U.S. But it applies only to the interpretation of federal laws and regulations. Thus, if a federal prosecutor had at hand some federal law or regulation that would be violated by putting live aborted babies in biohazard bags to suffocate, then BAIPA ensures offenders can’t get off by arguing they weren’t really persons/humans he was putting in the bag. But first there must be a federal law or regulation that applies to the a
