Word: edelin
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MORE THAN for the legal definition of birth which it offers as a precedent, the recent decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to acquit Kenneth C. Edelin is important for the support it gives to a woman's constitutional right to an abortion. The conviction of Dr. Edelin for manslaughter following an abortion he performed on October 3, 1973 was the triumph of a prosecutor anxious to limit the right to an abortion in this country. In finding insufficient evidence to prove any "wanton" or "reckless" conduct to a viable human being, the Court has reasserted its faith...
According to the original trial judge, James P. Maguire, only proof that the fetus ever lived outside the mother's body would have legally constituted birth and subjected Edelin to a possible manslaughter conviction. But from the beginning the prosecution's case to prove a live birth rested on a confusing and contradictory welter of evidence. Both at the trial and at the appeal last April, Assistant District Attorney Newman A. Flanagan drowned his argument in emotionalism. Flanagan could not refute the overwhelming evidence that the fetus never lived outside the mother's womb, but he could shout...
...specified at least four bases for our appeal besides, as the story puts it, "that the jury found Edelin guilty of charges that were not those in the original accusations." Dr. Edelin was charged with manslaughter, which, if alleged to be involuntary, requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt of "wanton and reckless conduct" rather than, as the story puts it, "ruthless and reckless conduct...
...original charge was that the manslaughter and death occurred at a point when the fetus was still within the mother's body rather than, as the story puts it, when it "was still alive outside its mother's body." The change was to prove that Dr. Edelin acted wantonly and recklessly after a live fetus (baby) was delivered outside the mother's body...
...Crimson regrets any errors contained in the news story referred to in the above letter and appreciates Mr. Homans's clarification of the issues involved in the Edelin case. The Editors