Puerto Rico Governor Jenniffer González, a Republican and a Trump supporter, has officially signed legislation recognizing unborn babies as human beings under the law.
On Thursday, Governor González signed Senate Bill 923, amending Puerto Rico’s Penal Code to explicitly recognize a fetus, at any stage of gestation, as a human being under criminal law.
The governor stated that the legislation:
“aims to maintain consistency between civil and criminal provisions by recognizing the unborn child as a human being.”
The newly signed measure alters the legal definition of murder in Puerto Rico’s Penal Code to include the death of an unborn child — meaning that the killing of a fetus during a violent crime against a pregnant woman can now be prosecuted accordingly.
The move builds on prior legislation signed in late 2025, including Law 183-2025 (formerly SB 504), which formally recognizes that:
the conceived child “at any stage of gestation within the mother’s womb” is a natural person under Puerto Rican civil law.
In legal terminology, a “natural person” is a human being with inherent legal rights — as opposed to an artificial legal entity such as a corporation.
The civil code revision now explicitly includes:
- The unborn child as a human being
- Legal recognition from the moment of conception
- Eligibility for inheritance and dependent status under certain legal frameworks
Additionally, crimes committed against a pregnant woman resulting in the death of her unborn child may now be prosecuted as first-degree murder, placing the unborn on equal legal footing in homicide statutes when violence is involved.
Fox News reported:
The legislation was named after Keishla Rodríguez, a pregnant woman who was killed in April 2021. Her partner, former Puerto Rican boxer Félix Verdejo, was convicted in the killing and received two life sentences.
Supporters of the law said it was designed to provide consistency between civil and criminal codes and focus on harsher punishments for the murder of pregnant women and that it was unrelated to abortion, but critics argued that it opens the door to eventually criminalizing the procedure in Puerto Rico, which remains legal.
“A zygote was given legal personality,” Rosa Seguí Cordero, an attorney and spokesperson for the National Campaign for Free, Safe and Accessible Abortion in Puerto Rico, told The Associated Press. “We women were stripped of our rights.”
[…]
Opponents of the law also said the amendment was approved without public hearings.
“There is no doubt that the measure did not undergo adequate analysis before its approval and leaves an unacceptable space for ambiguity regarding civil rights,” Annette Martínez Orabona, executive director for the American Civil Liberties Union in Puerto Rico, told The Associated Press. “The legislative leadership failed to fulfill its responsibility to the people, and so did the governor.”
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