The act also gives new meaning to the terms "born" and "partially born." According to the bill, the "infant" -- embryo, fetus or actual baby -- can be "partially born" even while inside a woman's body, so long as the head has cleared the cervix. This could, potentially, include abortion procedures used at all stages in a woman's pregnancy.

Though the bill makes an exception for "legal abortions," the law itself does not spell out what those might be, and it appears to simultaneously outlaw most procedures previously deemed legal.

But the most confounding statement of the Infant's Protection Act is one that may seem to be the most innocuous: "Nothing in this section shall be interpreted to exclude the defenses otherwise available to any person under the law including defenses provided pursuant to chapters 562 and 563, RSMo."

That first chapter cited a criminal defense for a person who has used force against another under conditions of duress "because he was coerced to do so, by the use of, or threatened imminent use of, unlawful physical force upon him or a third person." The key phrase here is "third person," which under Missouri law could be construed to apply to a fetus. Likewise, the other statute cited allows a person to use physical force -- even deadly force -- if "he reasonably believes that such deadly force is necessary to protect himself or another against death."

Sam Lee, director of Campaign Life Missouri, who helped DeFeo write the bill, contends that the inclusion of these statutes in the Infant's Protection Act is actually intended to shield doctors, allowing them to perform an illegal abortion (in this case, employing "deadly force" against the fetus) if it is necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman (in this case, the "third person.") Reproductive rights advocates ridicule this claim, pointing out that the Infant's Protection Act already exempts physicians from criminal liability if the procedure is performed "to save the life of the mother during pregnancy or birth."

For his part, DeFeo acknowledges that these particular statutes were included to allow for the use of force against medical personnel to stop an illegal procedure, but he claims that the law only bans late-term, dilation-and-extraction abortions. In a televised debate with Carnahan a week before the veto session, DeFeo asserted that the statutes demand that any defense used to stop a banned procedure "must not exceed the bounds of what's necessary in order to stop the action," according to a report in the Jefferson City News Tribune.

Exactly what constitutes "what's necessary"? DeFeo, a lawyer, went on to give examples of acceptable use of force to stop a doctor from performing a proscribed abortion: "pinning his arms to his side or knocking him to the floor." However, backing away from his earlier statement, DeFeo contended, "In no way would anyone be able to use deadly force as a lawful defense."

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