18-8701 [18-8801]. DEFINITIONS. [EFFECTIVE DATE – SEE SECTION 18-8806] As used in this chapter:
(1) "Abortion" means the use of any means to intentionally terminate the clinically diagnosable pregnancy of a woman with knowledge that the termination by those means will, with reasonable likelihood, cause the death of the preborn child. "Abortion" does not mean the use of an intrauterine device or birth control pill to inhibit or prevent ovulations, fertilization, or the implantation of a fertilized ovum within the uterus.
(2) "Fetal heartbeat" means embryonic or fetal cardiac activity or the steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart within the gestational sac.
(3) "Fetus" and "preborn child" each mean an individual organism of the species Homo sapiens from fertilization until live birth.
(4) "Gestational age" means the age of a preborn human individual as calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period of a pregnant woman.
(5) "Medical emergency" means a condition that, on the basis of the physician’s good faith clinical judgment, so complicates the medical condition of a pregnant woman as to necessitate the immediate abortion of her pregnancy to avert her death or for which a delay will create serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.
History:
[18-8701 [18-8801], added 2021, ch. 289, sec. 1, p. 867.]