From: nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos)
Subject: Re: Chaney chokes again.
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date: 15 Sep 92 19:14:22 GMT

In <1992Sep10.041120.15868@watson.ibm.com> Larry Margolis <margoli@watson.ibm.com> writes:

>In  <1992Sep10.011244.18565@csus.edu>  chaneysa@nextnet.csus.edu (Stephen A Chaney) writes:
>> In article <sam.715448934@spssig> adams@spss.com (Steve Adams) writes:
>> >chaneysa@nextnet.csus.edu (Stephen A Chaney) writes:
>> >
>> >>So they basically said that it's okay to kill a human life as long as
>> >>it's done in private and they're too young.
>> >
>> >That is NOT what I said at all.  Privacy rulings do not allow you to harm a
>> >person.  Please show me the law that defines a fetus as a person.  Can't
>> >find one?  Oops.  You lose.
>>
>> The fetus was a person before Roe vs. Wade. And of course, it is Roe
>> vs. Wade that we're challenging.

>The fetus was *never* legally a person; RvW had nothing to do with it.
>Hence Steve Adams' challenge to "show me the law that defines a fetus
>as a person".  Which, of course, you can't do.

>Larry Margolis, MARGOLI@YKTVMV (Bitnet), margoli@watson.IBM.com (Internet)

I can show you something pretty close to it.  _Regina v. Turnour_
Assize 35/23/29 (Essex 1581). "Regina" means the charge was brought
before the Queen's bench.  

I have added capitalization for emphasis.  Everything between the two
rows of asterisks is from the court records, and I take no responsibility
for it, except for the authenticity of the records.  

Translated from the original Latin by Dr. J. H. Baker of Cambridge
University.

				***********

	Essex: The jurors for [our] lady the queen present that 
Jane Turnour of Stisted in the aforesaid county, spinster, being
a common witch and enchantress, not having God before her eyes, but 
being seduced by the instigation of the devil, on the eight day of
January in the twenty-second year of the reign of the Lady Elizabeth
[1580], Queen of England, France and Ireland, defender of the faith,
devilishly and maliciously at Stisted aforesaid, on various days and
occasions both before and since, maliciously and devilishly bewitched
and enchanted a certain Helen Sparrowe, wife of John Sparrowe, in the body
of the same Helen, being then great with a certain LIVING CHILD	[Latin:
*infantum vivo*], by reason whereof not only was the same Helen then
and there on various occasions gravely vexed in her body horribly troubled,
to the greatest danger of her life, but also the aforesaid CHILD (of which
the same Helen was then and there great) then and there came to death.

And thus the aforesaid jurors say upon their oath that the aforesaid
Jane Turnour, in manner and form aforesaid, on the day and in the year
aforesaid, at Stisted aforesaid, maliciously and devilishly bewitched
and enchanted the aforementioned Helen Sparrowe, and deprived the
LIVING CHILD...of HIS LIFE by reason of these enchantments and bewitchings,
contrary to the form of the statute made and provided for such cases...

[Note by the clerk:] Puts herself on the country [i.e. accepts trial
by jury]; guilty as charged.

			********************

This record, and many others like it, are part of an *amicus curiae*
brief which Joseph Dellapenna has generously provided me with a copy of.

Peter Nyikos


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