Law Commons^™

The Quick And The Dead (And The Transported), Manushag N. Powell

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

In most nations that still execute prisoners—including the U.S.—it is illegal to execute a pregnant person. In English common law, women have been permitted to “plead the belly” in one form or another since the 14^th century, and this fact is sometimes misconstrued by anti-choice and forced-birth advocates as evidence of a long legal tradition of protection for the lives of fetuses. In fact, it is merely evidence of a long history of legal inconsistencies in the ways laws were applied and sentences carried out against women, for whom there were fewer options for clemency than for men. This …