ProChoiceDanielle
Member
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2005
- Messages
- 158
- Reaction score
- 0
- Gender
- Female
- Political Leaning
- Liberal
Busta said:Here is an example of the law determining that an unborn child is a person.
The law uses science and common scence to detrmin homicide.
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/SFL/homicide_killing_unborn_child.htm
American Law Reports ALR5th Volume 64 (1998) Annotation
HOMICIDE BASED ON KILLING OF UNBORN CHILD
Alan S. Wasserstrom, J.D.
Whether the slayer of an unborn child or fetus can be convicted of a homicide has been the subject of controversy among state and federal courts. While under the common law a conviction was only possible if the child was born alive that is no longer a universal rule under state and federal statutes. Accordingly, convictions may be won where death of the child occurs before birth where the courts consider the child to be viable or a person or human being under the governing statute. For example, in the case of State v. Holcomb, 956 S.W.2d 286, 64 ALR5th 901 (Mo. Ct. App. W.D. 1997), the court held that an unborn child is a "person" for the purposes of the first degree murder statute and the fact that a mother of a pre-born child may have been granted certain legal rights to terminate the pregnancy did not preclude the prosecution of a third party for murder in the case of a killing of a child not consented to by the mother. The court rejected the defendant's argument that his actions in killing the child, accomplished by a savage beating of the mother, should be considered equivalent to conduct under the state's misdemeanor abortion statute. The court, instead, determined that the state legislature never intended to treat the unconsented (by the mother) killing of a pre-born infant, in the context of a physical assault on the mother, as anything other than a murder of the infant. This annotation examines all cases addressing the homicides of unborn children under statutory provisions, but does not consider the myriad cases decided under common law.
I guess you missed the word UNBORN before the word CHILD. :roll: