Posted on 06/25/2002 12:59:38 PM PDT by Dallas
PARIS, June 25 (Reuters) - France's highest court ruled on Tuesday an unborn foetus does not have the legal status of a living person, overturning a bid by a woman to sue doctors for the death of her child during labour.
The decision by the Cour de Cassation means it is impossible to be found guilty of homicide for killing an unborn foetus. Lawyers of the woman, Sophie Potonet, said their only hope was for parliament to change French law.
It supports a similar ruling last year in which the court ruled that a drunken driver who caused the death of a six-month foetus in a car crash could not be tried for murder.
The latest judgement overturns a verdict by a court in 2000 which found a doctor and midwife guilty of manslaughter for the death of a child during labour in a clinic in the Paris suburb of Chesnay in November 1991.
The mother contended that the midwife failed to act when she alerted her to heart irregularities in the foetus on the eve of the expected birth, which was overdue.
A day later, the child was stillborn by caesarean section, with lack of oxygen diagnosed as the cause of death.
"The principle behind the legality of crimes and punishment, requiring a strict interpretation of penal law, is opposed to the possibility of trial for manslaughter in the case of a child not born alive," the Cour de Cassation ruled.
The French are nominally Catholics, who believe life begins at conception, although France is a secular republic and has relatively liberal abortion laws.
Europe is going to hell rapidly.
Exodus 21:22-24 (note that this chapter of the Bible is right after the Ten Commandments -- Exodus 20). In this passage, it states the penalty for hurting a woman and her unborn child -- life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand. This passage does not emphasis the injury to the mother so much as the unborn. This passage of the Bible goes back to the time of Moses and the Ten Commandments.
Don't like that reference? Then go to the oath that doctors have been giving allegiance for about 3500 years (newer than the Ten Commandments, but has aged gracefully). In the Hypocratic Oath, Doctors will not give women "potions for abortions". Note that before about 1900, surgical abortions were not really possible, even with the most skilled physicians of that time.
Then after the time of Jesus Christ (33AD thereabouts), He sent His twelve apostles out of Israel to make the "Good News" known to all nations. At about the year 75 AD or 80AD, the document known as the "Didache" or "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles to the Pagans" was in writing. This document stated that homosexuality was very wrong, as well as abortion and infanticide. This was known as the teaching of the two ways -- the way of light and the way of darkness.
Personally, there are so many FREEMASONS in control of the government of France that this Pagan attitude does not surprise me. One of the Freemason groups in Paris (Illuminati) has a monument erected that it will not rest until it destroys the 2000 year old church in Rome.
Well, I'm glad that's settled.
No doubt right after they ruled that Jerry Lewis is the funniest human being ever to grace the planet.
you can guarantee that if you tampered with the wine making process, they'd be more upset than if you murdered a 'foetus'.
It's been there for some time already.
Bull crap. The King James version says that if the woman's "fruit depart from her but no other injury is done" then the offender pays a fine (obviously for the loss of the "fruit") and as long as the woman isn't hurt, that's it.
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