WHY THE POTUS MATTERS TO A FETUS:

Court Rules Fetus Can Be Defended (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, October 16, 2002)

In a ruling that could add new dimensions to the abortion debate, a Michigan court said a pregnant woman can use deadly force to protect a fetus from attack even if her own life is not in danger.

The Michigan Court of Appeals reversed a Kalamazoo County Circuit Court's conviction of a woman for killing her boyfriend and ordered a new trial because Judge Richard Ryan Lamb had not instructed the jury about the ``defense of others'' theory.

The appeals court did not address a key issue in abortion cases: when a fetus becomes a person.

Here's why having a conservative president matters to conservatives. For one thing (though this was a state court), he gets to appoint judges who can continue to create a body of law like this, which restores human rights to the fetus. Add regulations like the recently announced one that extends health care to fetuses and you can develop a legal environment in which Roe v. Wade becomes not merely incoherent and anticonstitutional but an actual contradiction of an entire skein of other laws. You lay an even firmer groundwork for its eventual overturn. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 16, 2002 6:33 PM