Mississippi Supreme Court Declares a Fetus To Be a "Person"

Jackson, MS, Clarion-Ledger ^ | 08-22-03 | Elliott, Jr., Jack

[Theodore R.]

The Mississippi Supreme Court, in a decision criticized by one of its members as an assault on Roe v. Wade, held Thursday that a fetus is a "person" under state law and wrongful death claims can be filed on its behalf.

[bourbon]

I'm back from California!!! I had the pleasure of reading about this MS Supreme Ct. decision in the LA Times just the other day.

BTW, while I was in Santa Barbara I was listening to the Jim Rome show (nationally syndicated sports talk radio) and he took a detour from his normal programming to make jokes about the recall election in CA. As a part of this segment, he read some emails sent in from listeners. My favorite one of them read:

Dear California,

Thank you for embarrassing yourself with the recall election and becoming the butt of every joke in the United States. I really appreciate your diverting all the jokes from me for a while.

Sincerely,
Mississippi.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[dixiechick2000]

ROTFLOL! That's great!

Welcome back! We've missed you.

[WKB]

I thought you died!!

[bourbon]

thanks! It's very nice to be back.

BTW, I like your newly-updated FR homepage...very cool. I'm going to make the changes to the ping list momentarily, but please keep your copy on your homepage. The more places we have the ping list, the better, I figure!

[bourbon]

I'm not dead. :-)
Just tanned, rested and ready!

[AKA Elena]

As I said in an earlier post (or words to this effect)--- that baby, from the moment of conception will never be a cockroach or a bird -- he or she is an incubating child!

As we continue to violate the most primal laws of nature -- unlike any other living thing -- and use abortion and some specious considerations ... aside from the unification of the sperm and the ovum as definition for a human being, having the right to LIFE, LIBERTY and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS! we will continue to sink into the morass!

[dixiechick2000]

Why, thank you!

I was going to return the list to you, but if you think I should hang on to a copy, I'll be more than happy to comply.

[tortoise]

(Cut-and-pasted from another thread I posted this on.)

The fetus was 19 weeks old at the time.

The important point. Under the old Common Law, this is right around the time (4-5 months) when a fetus becomes eligible for civil and criminal damages independent of the mother. However, the fetus is still subordinate to the mother; the fetus can assert no practical rights but the mother (or court if the mother is unable to) can claim damages on behalf of the fetus after this point as though it were a second person.

So this court case is essentially consistent with the English Common Law tradition of the US, and should not be construed to have "anti-abortion" relevance. If you look at this carefully, you see some of the judicial difficulty in outlawing abortion outright, particularly in the first trimester. The US legal system is built on a foundation of English Common Law that doesn't expressly disallow abortion and implicitly supports it conceptually, particularly before the time that the Common Law grants very limited legal status to the fetus.

This is the context in which the court decision should be framed, and makes it more clear why the Supreme Court has been compelled to rule like it has on this issue (irrespective of the value judgment). The Common Law legal status of a fetus has been around for at least a couple thousand years, and we still use it today, like most other things in the Common Law.

[MHGinTN]

Your wishful thinking? Several states now have fetal homicide laws that establish the prenatal to be a human being, else there is no crime againt them possible.

[WKB]

ready!

FOR WHAT?

[bourbon]

The MS ping list is community property/freeware/public domain stuff IMHO. Use it as you please.

[dixiechick2000]

You and WKB did all of the work, but thanks for letting me keep a copy.

[WKB]

Thanks for the credit. I just hope
it's worth. it. Only a few seem to give a ra'ts a**

[WKB]

Thanks for the credit. I just hope
it's worth. it. Only a few seem to give a ra'ts a**

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

Mississippi Supreme Court Declares Sky To Be Blue

Nothing like stating the obvious!