dcnovice
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Dear old Wiki has some interesting stuff on quickening and its role in determining legal personhood.
quote:
The word "quick" originally meant "alive". Historically, quickening has sometimes been considered to be the beginning of the possession of "individual life" by the fetus. British legal scholar William Blackstone explained the subject of quickening in the eighteenth century, relative to feticide and abortion:
Life… begins in contemplation of law as soon as an infant is able to stir in the mother's womb. For if a woman is quick with child, and by a potion, or otherwise, killeth it in her womb; or if any one beat her, whereby the child dieth in her body, and she is delivered of a dead child; this, though not murder, was by the ancient law homicide or manslaughter. But at present it is not looked upon in quite so atrocious a light, though it remains a very heinous misdemeanor.[5]
Nevertheless, quickening was only one of several standards that were used historically to determine when the right to life attaches to a fetus. According to the "ancient law" mentioned by Blackstone, another standard was formation of the fetus, which occurs weeks before quickening. Henry de Bracton explained the ancient law, about five hundred years before Blackstone:
If one strikes a pregnant woman or gives her poison in order to procure an abortion, if the fetus is already formed or quickened, especially if it is quickened, he commits homicide.[6]
The rule that a fetus was considered alive upon formation dates back at least another millennium[dubious – discuss] before Bracton. For example, in the Septuagint text of the Old Testament, killing the fetus was considered to be taking a life, "if it be perfectly formed".[7][8][9] However, this is probably a mis-translation, as the Hebrew text translates literally to "her children come out but there is no disaster" with no mention of physical formation, and other translations of exactly the same verses maintain that killing the fetus was considered to be taking a life without regard to its physical formation.[10] Thus, quickening perceived by a woman has been only one of the standards used to mark when a human life legally begins. Others include Viability, birth, and conception.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a woman convicted of a capital crime could claim a delay in her execution if she were pregnant; a woman who did so was said to "plead the belly". In Ireland on 16 March 1831 Baron Pennefather in Limerick stated that pregnancy was not alone sufficient for a delay but there had to be quickening. See Limerick Evening Post and Clare Sentinel 18 March 1831.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quickening
If I recall correctly, the old version of the Nicene Creed talked about Christ's coming to judge the "quick and the dead."
_____________________________
No matter how cynical you become,
it's never enough to keep up.
JANE WAGNER, THE SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF
INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE
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