Posted on 11/03/2005 7:27:43 PM PST by West Coast Conservative
Alberta's justice minister says he will be introducing legislation allowing children injured in car accidents while still in the womb to sue their mothers.
It would mark the first such law in Canada, if passed by the legislature. Justice Minister Ron Stevens says the bill will be up for consideration at the end of November.
The action has sparked concerns by opposition parties and the insurance industry, fearing it might open the floodgates for mothers to be sued for anything they do while they are pregnant.
Stevens promises the legislation will be written narrowly to avoid too many cases going to court. Lawsuits will be limited to the amount of the mother's personal liability.
Dave Eggen, a New Democrat member of the legislature, accused the ruling Tories of appealing to the province's social conservatives by eroding the rights of women.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada says the province is passing the buck onto the industry, which will have to pay for the care of disabled children.
Jim Rivait, IBC's Alberta vice-president, warns the costs of litigation will be factored into insurance fees.
The legislation stems from a case involving a severely disabled four-year-old girl, Brooklyn Rewega. Her father Doug wants to sue his wife, Brooklyn's mother, in order to get money from the insurance company to cover the care of their daughter. The Rewegas are still married.
Lisa Rewega was pregnant and at the wheel on Dec. 31, 2000, when she lost control of her car and was pitched through the windshield. She gave birth four months later to Brooklyn, who was born blind with brain damage and cerebral palsy. She suffers up to 10 seizures a day.
A Supreme Court decision in 1999 ruled that children can't make claims against their mothers for events that hurt them in the womb. If anyone else but the mother had been driving, a claim could go ahead.
Rosanna Saccomani, the family's lawyer, says the Supreme Court left an opening that would allow a child to sue its mother if she were involved in a car accident.
But .. aborting the "fetus" isn't hurting it ..??
I really hate law that is the brainchild of personal injury lawyers.
So is it a baby or not?
drugs? alcohol? irresponsible sex? bad genes?
drugs? alcohol? irresponsible sex? bad genes?
"So is it a baby or not?"
To me .. and how I believe .. it's a baby from conception.
My comment was in lib-speak because I was trying to make a point. Sorry if I didn't accomplish that.
These are the type of laws that will be the undoing of the abortion industry. They are going to screw up and call one "Injury to a Child", and that party will be over in short order.
I guess I forgot the /sarcasm tag. Sorry. Often what I am thinking doesn't come across the keyboard properly.
I agree totally. I was thinking about the abortion issue about how it's called a fetus or baby depending on whether someone wants it or not. A woman can kill it herself and that's her "reproductive right" but heaven help the person who might injure the baby by accident, including the mother. The problem is that it seems that it all depends on who stands to profit the most from it. After just reading about how this other lady got off on killing her newborn by trying to conceal the pregnancy and dumping the baby in a trash can to die and then hearing this, sometimes it gets to be a little to much to process at once.
Shhhhhhh! They might catch on!
I know .. they use "fetus" because it's less intimidating than "baby". They try to convince themselves that it's just a blob of flesh - so that makes it okay.
I agree.
But I would not word it "I believe". I would say "I know". It is a scientific Fact that it is a human life from conception and a human is a person is a human is a baby.
Well .. I don't see the distinction between "believe" and "know" - to me they are the same. I believe the Bible - and that's because I know what it says.
I've discussed this with my teens and they agree that the baby is a human from conception. After all, it has the full compliment of 23 chromosomes. The argument that life begins sometime between conception and birth is bogus. If the cells are multipling and it is growing, it's alive. So is the argument that the pre-born baby could not survive on its own outside the womb because most 2 year olds couldn't survive on their own either. A baby, until it begins to crawl, is totally dependent on another to move from one place to another and if food is not put in its mouth, it would starve. So going back in development, at what point does the "fetus" become a baby? Well, you then have to arbitrarily pick a date, but what if you are off by a couple of days? Just to be safe, you'd have to push it back even more until you finally reach the point of conception. It doesn't matter if the person is three days from conception or 90 years from birth. It's still the same person, just at a different point in develpoment. Age is not the criteria in determining humanness.
No wonder the gal put her baby in a trash bag; she was just making sure she wasn't sued later.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1515352/posts
Guess she figured 90 days for infanticide was better than taking a chance in court. /sarc>
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