Is An Unborn Child A Person

[Volokh, Eugene]

	I'm not sure how serious people are being in this exchange, so
apologies if I'm missing the joke.  But surely as a constitutional
matter, the legislature may treat fetuses as persons for some purposes
but not for other purposes.  That just leaves a question of statutory
construction -- did the legislature mean to include fetuses for carpool
law purposes?  I see little reason why the legislature would want to do
that, since it doesn't serve the goal of encouraging people to carpool,
and since it would require often difficult and needless decisions by the
police officer as to whether to ticket the woman or not.  (What if the
woman says she's a month pregnant and not showing yet, for instance?)
But in any event, it seems like a pretty mundane question of statutory
construction.

	Eugene

-----Original Message-----
From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Rick Duncan
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 11:16 AM
To: CONLAWPROF at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: Re: Is An Unborn Child A Person


I'm not sure about Paul's ghost hypothetical, but what if in Arizona the
legislature has enacted a fetal homicide law that makes it a crime for a
3d party (except an abortionist protected under Roe) to kill an unborn
child? If an unborn child is a person for purposes of homicide laws that
severely punish the child's murderer, is it unreasonable to argue that
the unborn child is a passenger for purposes of the car-pool law?

I suppose it would help Paul's ghost hypo in a similar way if Arizona
had a  ghost homicide law? :-)

Rick Duncan





Rick Duncan 
Welpton Professor of Law 
University of Nebraska College of Law 
Lincoln, NE 68583-0902


"When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either Galahad or
Mordred: middle things are gone." C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle

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