12 January 2006

Unless You Can Give It Its Own Seatbelt

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/01/11/fetus.carpool.ap/index.html

I don't mind the special parking spots at malls and such, but the carpool lane? No, a fetus is not a separate passenger.

While I had little doubt about how this case was going to be decided, once one judge decides that the fetus counts as a separate passenger, the flood gates open for anti-abortion legislation and lawsuits with this as a precedent. There are some anti-abortion groups that have literally been sending pregnant women to drive in carpool lanes by themselves just so they can try to fight the ensuing ticket and have the fetus declared as a passenger, and by extension a person. Hopefully no judge ever decides to interpret the law in their favor.

3 comments:

cbreakr said...

Heh, I saw that yesterday. I think this is one of those cases where the "fetus as person" argument fails miserably. Distinct and independent physical location actually means something? Who'd have thunk it?!

slackwench said...

Are fetae bosons or fermions?

farniks said...

In the "car seat state space," it appears that both the mother and the fetus are bosons.