Legal persons
Sir: May I add a legal footnote to what two correspondents have already writ ten on Cato's waspish attack (August 11) on "The abortion lobby?" It has long been held by legal writers that when a child is born it has a right of action in respect of an injtal wrongfully inflicted on it before birth. In the absence of a decision on the point one cannot be absolutely sule that the courts would accept this view; hence counsel's advice to the parents to accept reduced damages the thalidomide cases (quite aP11,11, from the problem as to proof of ner gence). Still, I regard it as practicallY certain that the courts would acceat the view I have just stated. How can one reconcile this vielv.. with the Abortion Act? The answero simple. The law is moulded to huniaa needs. It can, and does, turn a cone' tion of people into a single 'legal Per' son,' namely a company. There tt, nothing impossible in making a leg.s' person out of a fund of money, ann i or a cow. The law can confer legit' personality for some purposes only 01. it can antedate personality. In short' the law can ' deem anything what ever. Obviously a child when bora, ought to have an action in respect 01. antenatal injuries, Irrespective 0' whether it is a legal person before,. birth (it is not). It would be crazy lo to give rights of action to the foetus that has never been born alive. The real social injury in such a case is 10 the mother, and it is she who is en. titled to the damages. The object of the Abortion Act had nothing to do with compensatin children. It was to remove the criminai sanction from a medical operation which has a substantial social justift , cation, Glanville Williarns Merion Gate, Gazeley Road, Carn. bridge
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