BY SARAH STEPHEN
A January 7 ruling by 2nd District Utah Judge Michael Allphin allowed the prosecution of a man accused of killing his pregnant ex-wife for the murder of the foetus. Roger MacGuire allegedly shot Susan MacGuire, on January 15, 2001, aiming the gun at her foetus. Utah's laws allow for homicide of an "unborn child".
The US Supreme Court's 1973 Roe vs Wade ruling defined foetal viability as the point at which a foetus can survive outside the womb — approximately the 28th week of pregnancy. Consequently, the defendent's lawyers claimed the foetus was not a person under Utah's homicide law and could not be murdered.
The state prosecution, however, argued that the definition of a "person" in reproductive-rights cases is not relevant in a criminal context. Allphin agreed: "Reproductive rights cases are simply inapplicable to restrict the state's interest in protecting unborn life." He ruled that the legislature clearly intended the term "unborn child" to refer to both a viable and nonviable foetus.
On January 9, a Florida appeals court ruled that a seven-year-old girl born with severe disabilities can sue her mother for negligence. The disabilities are a direct result of a car accident the girl's mother was involved in the day before giving birth. If the suit is succesful, the mothers' insurer, which is opposing the case, will have to pay for her care.
Florida is only the third state to allow children to sue their mothers for pre-birth accidents. The Illinois Supreme Court rejected such a precedent in 1998, arguing that it would make mother and child legal adversaries from the moment of conception.
From Green Left Weekly, January 16, 2002.
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