Browne Lewis, “You Belong to Me”: Unscrambling the Legal Ramifications of Recognizing a Property Right in Frozen Human Eggs, 83 Tennessee Law Review 645 (2016). William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England bifurcated the physical universe into persons and property. In Blackstone’s description of English law, there were categories of persons (just as there were categories of property) – freemen, slaves, and wives ‘protected’ by coverture. But each of those categories of persons consisted of whole, living natural persons. Blackstone recited the prevailing scientific and theological view of the day, that life began upon the ‘quickening’ of ‘an infant … in the mother’s womb’. Blackstone similarly recited the prevailing legal view of when personhood ended – upon death. But while Blackstone clearly set forth the parameters of personhood, he failed to acknowledge that the borders of ‘property’ did not neatly correspond, leaving the possibility of physical objects that were neither persons nor property … (more)
[Tanya Marsh, JOTWELL, 10 April]
First posted 2017-04-10 12:14:02
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