After a psychiatrist’s seven-month pregnant wife is found unconscious and bleeding in a parking garage with her unborn child missing, the paramedic reports to Benson that it appears as though the woman sustained massive abdominal trauma that appeared to be an emergency caesarean section. After the investigation uncovers a trail leading to infidelity and questions about the paternity of the baby, Stabler begins to feel the stress of the investigation.

Capt. Donald Cragen

Olivia Benson. (to Stabler) Hey, you know everyone in that room is on your side. But we’re not mind readers.

Elliot Stabler(referring to Kathy). One of us has to be able to sleep at night. She thinks I’m shutting her out. Olivia Benson. You are. That’s exactly what you do. You keep this up, you’re gonna ruin the best thing you’ve ever had.

Olivia Benson. Nice place. Female Junkie. I cleaned up especially for you. Elliot Stabler. Your boyfriend doesn’t mind the mess? Female Junkie. Who says I’ve got a boyfriend? Elliot Stabler. Come on. a girl like you? I’m sure you have a few. Female Junkie. You coming on to me? I’m into that. Your friend can watch.

Elliot Stabler. If that baby had been born in a hospital, it would’ve lived! Alex Cabot. That argument could also be used to condemn legal abortion. Elliot Stabler. That’s different. Abortion is the mother’s choice. Olivia Benson. I don’t know, Elliot. You can’t have it both ways. Either a fetus is a person, or it isn’t.

Olivia Benson. His dirty laundry is cleaner than my entire wardrobe. Look, he has them all labeled: whites, colored, drycleaning. Elliot Stabler. Anything marked ‘bloody clothes’?

Stabler is upset because the most they can charge the suspect with is illegal third trimester abortion because they cannot prove that the child was born live and killed after the fact.

This contrasts with what was established prior in the Law & Order episode “Misconception,” which stated that once the fetus reached twenty-one weeks, an individual could be charged with manslaughter if they caused the mother to miscarry or the fetus to cease development. According to real New York law, if the woman is over 24 weeks pregnant, the crime is abortion in the first degree.

This episode appears to be ripped from the headlines of the Lisa Montgomery case.