720 ILCS 5/9-2.1 – Voluntary Manslaughter of an Unborn Child

Posted by Christopher Combs on March 20, 2026

720 ILCS 5/9-2.1 – Voluntary Manslaughter of an Unborn Child

This law makes it a serious crime to unlawfully cause the death of an unborn child under certain emotional or mistaken circumstances.

This Illinois law says that it is a Class 1 felony if someone causes the death of an unborn child under certain circumstances. These circumstances include either while acting out of strong emotion after provocation or when mistakenly believing their actions are justified. It also defines what “unborn child” means and lists exceptions for lawful medical and abortion procedures.

(a) A person commits this crime if they kill an unborn child without lawful reason, and while acting under sudden, intense emotion caused by another person’s serious provocation, and they accidentally cause the unborn child’s death instead of the person they intended to harm. “Serious provocation” means something that would make an ordinary person suddenly very angry or emotional.

(b) A person also commits this crime if they intentionally or knowingly kill an unborn child while wrongly believing that their actions are legally justified, even though that belief is unreasonable.

(c) Punishment: This offense is a Class 1 felony.

(d) For this law:

“Unborn child” means a human being from the time an embryo attaches in the womb until birth.
“Person” does not include the pregnant person whose unborn child is harmed or killed.

(e) This law does not apply to:

Deaths that happen during a legal abortion performed with the pregnant person’s consent, as defined by the Reproductive Health Act.
Deaths that occur as part of normal medical care, testing, or treatment by medical professionals.

View the full statute here.