Attorneys have reached a plea agreement in the case of a 23-year-old McKinney man indicted last year on a murder charge after police said he caused the death of an unborn child by assaulting his pregnant girlfriend.

The murder charge was dropped Friday, and Brian Christopher Canaday was sentenced to six years in prison for a charge of assault causing bodily injury.

The woman survived the May 2008 assault, but the fetus she was carrying was stillborn, police said. A 4-year-old state law allows grand juries the option of indicting on murder charges if it believes a person caused the death of an unborn child.

The law is considered controversial because it addresses the question of whether a fetus is a person.