From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
Subject: Re: Is there some point to Darcy's question?
Organization: Who, me???
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 01:19:30 GMT

In article <34458@rnd.GBA.NYU.EDU> smezias@rnd.GBA.NYU.EDU (Stephen J. Mezias) writes:
>In article <1992Dec19.213716.16704@rotag.mi.org> kevin@rotag.mi.org
>(Kevin Darcy) writes: 
>
>>To which "legal system" do you refer? The law is a complex, multi-faceted
>>entity. You've been snatching examples from one or two areas of law to try 
>>and prove a point in a completely different area.
>>
>>People can be charged with assault and even murder in cases where they 
>>destroy fetuses against the wishes of the mother.
>
>Please provide specific cites to cases where someone was charged and
>convicted.  

Hmmm... I don't necessarily have ready access to that. How about:

	Person. [...] _Unborn child_. [...] A viable unborn child, which would 
	have been born alive but for the negligence of defendant, is a 
	"person" within meaning of Wrongful Death Statute. Simmons v. Howard 
	University, D.C.D.C., 323 F.Supp. 529.  Unborn child is a "person" for 
	purpose of remedies given for personal injuries and child may sue 
	after his birth. Weaks v. Mounter, 88 Nev. 118, 493 P.2d 1307,1309.

	(Black's, 5th Ed.)
 
>>Fetuses can have inheritance rights, albeit contingent on birth.
>
>This does not provide a counterexample at all.  

Why not? Your only "examples" of fetal NON-personhood, besides RvW itself, 
consist of administrative definitions. The inheritance example existed in
the Common Law even before abortion was criminalized. I think it's more
indicative of established legal principles than whatever happens to be the
bureaucratic definition of "person" in the SSA this week...

>>Incorrect. They are only relevant examples of how the SSA and IRS fail to 
>>recognize z/e/f's as equivalent to "persons" for certain purposes. You can't 
>>generalize to the entire "legal system" from just those isolated instances.
>>There is no requirement that definitions used for one purpose in one executive
>>branch have to be consistent with definitions used for other purposes, or
>>in other executive branches, or in another branch of the federal government,
>>or for all purposes in all branches at all levels of legal jurisdiction. It 
>>just doesn't follow.
>
>If you think the generalization is false, please provide several
>examples of instances where /z/e/f/s are given recognition as persons.

Refute the ones I've already provided first.

>The SSA and IRS examples are not isolated
>instances at all; consider that all-important question of citizenship
>of which they are a subset.  

Wrong. They are not a "subset" of citizenship at all. The SSA could let
me give a social security number for my cat, the IRS could let me have a
tax credit for, say, solar heating panels or asbestos removal, and none of 
this would violate any Constitutional principles.

As for citizenship, the Fourteenth Amendment says that anyone who is born 
or naturalized is a citizen, but it doesn't say that those are the ONLY 
things that can be citizens, so if the INS wanted to grant citizenship to a 
tree, what do you suppose would be unconstitutional about it? 

								- Kevin
Newsgroups: talk.abortion