Word: fetus
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Homans's definition of birth is much more restrictive, insisting that the fetus must have breathed to have been born. And he contends that the fetus in the case "never drew a single breath." Judge McGuire's instructions to the jury, after the attorneys' closing arguments, will be critical in providing a definition of birth...
What Flanagan knows he must further prove to win his case is that the fetus was viable, since this birth would mean nothing unless the fetus was old enough to have survived. If the fetus were pre-viable and would have died apart from the woman, there can be no grounds for the allegation that Edelin killed a human being. Flanagan has argued that the fetus was between 24 and 28 weeks gestational age, while Homans--holding fast on a line of arguments that is not essential to the proof of his own claims--contends that it was between...
However, such a strict examination of the prosecution's case implies that it would not oppose abortions in which the surgeon's contact with the fetus occurs only after it is dead--as in, say, an abortion by saline infusion--and that the prosecution of Edelin is aimed simply at abolishing abortions by hysterotomy. Still, many charge that the prosecution has a much more purposeful motive: that anti-abortion forces lie behind the indictment...
...hulking man with a sonorous voice and a formidable court presence, Homans builds his defense with a stern precision based on diligent research and a certain irascible doggedness. One prosecution witness who spent five minutes testifying that the fetus breathed before it died found he had to spend another full day in court, being dragged across the forensic coals by the irreconcilable Homans. Dr. Enrique Gimenez-Jimeno, the state's top witness, who said he remembered particulars the hysterotomy operation, was forced to acknowledge under Homans's severe questioning that he could not recall key aspects of the operating room...
...coherent answers. Alternately furrowing his brow, gazing down at the linoleum floor, or staring sidelong out through a window, Edelin usually paused before answering questions and displayed a calm bemusement when his attorney, the court typist, or the judge stumbled on his scientific terms. He usually called the fetus and placenta "the products of conception" in describing abortion technique, and these explanations lacked the graphic polemicism that marked some prosecution testimony on the same subjects. Edelin employed his hands in controlled and graceful explication of his testimony--"sweeping" the placenta from the uterine wall in the air with the first...