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To: MHGinTN

Not really true. You are correct that the Constitution does not not use the term "human," but the Constitutional issue was not citizenship. The Constitutional issue I'm talking about is what is a "person?" That is the term used in the Fifth Amendment which prohibits the taking of life without due process of law.

However, when I said that the law was that a fetus doesn't become a human until birth, I wasn't really talking about the Constitution. I was talking about the Common Law. There were actually cases where people were charged criminally and civilly with killing a fetus. Generally, the courts said that a fetus did not have the same legal rights as a human until birth. At that point in history, live birth was considered too speculative.

So my point was that when they wrote "person" in the Constitution, they were most likely using the Common Law definition, which would not include a fetus.

That, however, does not mean that States did not have the power to protect a fetus or make abortion a crime. There are lots of things we pass laws about that don't involve the killing of a human. And the drafters of the Constitution did not intend to prevent States from regulating abortion. There were several States that already had laws against abortion, in fact. It wasn't until Roe v. Wade that abortion became a Constitutional right.


52 posted on 01/25/2007 11:32:52 AM PST by Brilliant
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To: Brilliant

Got it. And the subpreme court making that Constitutional Right was decidedly beyond the scope of their powers, but the addition of the Doe v Bolton ruling created a stare decis acceptance of the wrong headed ruling in Roe.


53 posted on 01/25/2007 11:37:02 AM PST by MHGinTN (If you can read this, you've had life support. Promote life support for others.)
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