Court Opinion

ID: 9539704
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:08:49.403427+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:15.024975
License: Public Domain

*76Deen, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially.
While concurring fully with the scholarly analysis by the majority opinion and concurring fully with Judge Beasley’s special concurrence, I also concur specially to add and advance one exception to allowing recovery of insurance benefits for the death of an unborn child.
In Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393 (1857), in deciding that blacks were not citizens or people of the United States and thus were without any individual constitutional rights, the United States Supreme Court, in effect, held that blacks were non-persons. In Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (93 SC 705, 35 LE2d 147) (1973), the Supreme Court held that unborn children were non-persons under the Constitution and therefore possessed no individual rights. The Dred Scott decision was overruled by the affirmative action of armed assault and aggression and the Fourteenth Amendment. Considering the continued controversy concerning the volatile issue of abortion, it might be argued that “the jury is still out” on the viability of the Roe v. Wade decision.
Regardless of whether an unborn child should be considered a person under the Constitution, two things are clear in this case: (1) there is no logical obstacle to considering an unborn child a person under an insurance policy; and (2) the insurer could have specifically excluded coverage for unborn or stillborn children, but failed to do so. However, while the trial court properly denied summary judgment for the insurer here, it should be emphasized that public policy would prohibit recovery of insurance benefits for the death of an unborn child brought about by abortion, unless inducing the abortion was medically necessary to preserve the life of the mother. To allow such recovery by voluntary parental induction of abortion would, where the mother’s life is not in danger, result in an unjust enrichment and violate a recognized, universal sentiment of justice, i.e., “the principle that no man should profit from his own inequity or take advantage of his own wrong.” Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process, 41 (1925). Compare the example of “Hutzpa” in Williams v. State, 126 Ga. App. 350 (190 SE2d 785) (1972).