"Court Says Six-Day-Old Baby Isn’t a Person"

God I hate these shitty editorialized titles.

"In an eight-page decision issued Thursday, a five-member majority of the Court of Appeals said in a decision written by Judge Eugene Pigott that the central question in the case was whether the state Legislature intended "to hold pregnant women criminally responsible for engaging in reckless conduct against themselves and their unborn fetuses, such that they should be subject to criminal liability for prenatal conduct that results in postnatal death? Under the current statutory scheme, the answer to this question is no."

The court said that Suffolk County prosecutors "concede that, had defendant not consented to the cesarean section with the result that the child be born alive, she would not have been prosecuted for manslaughter in the second degree." Ruling against Jorgensen, then, "would create a perverse incentive for a pregnant woman to refuse a cesarean section out of fear that if her baby is born alive she would face criminal charges for her alleged reckless conduct, jeopardizing the health of the woman and the unborn fetus."

Such an imposition of criminal liability, the majority found, "should be clearly defined by the legislature, not the courts. It should also not be left to the whim of the prosecutor."