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17 N. Y. L. F. 335 (1971-1972)
The Phoenix of Abortional Freedom: Is a Penumbral or Ninth-Amendment Right About to Arise from the Nineteenth-Century Legislative Ashes of a Fourteenth-Century Common-Law Liberty

handle is hein.journals/nyls17 and id is 357 raw text is: NEW YORK LAW FORUM VOLUME XVII NUMBER 2 1971 THE PHOENIX OF ABORTIONAL FREEDOM: IS A PENUMBRAL OR NINTH-AMENDMENT RIGHT ABOUT TO ARISE FROM THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY LEGISLATIVE ASHES OF A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY COMMON-LAW LIBERTY? CYRIL C. MEANS, JR.* ** In ancient Eastern folklore, the phoenix was a fabulous bird, said to live for five hundred years in the Arabian desert, then to build its own funeral pyre, on which it would burn itself to ashes, out of which it would then arise young again. Is it the destiny of elective abortion to recapitulate the career of the phoenix? Readers of this journal will recall an article published three years ago,' in which I described the nineteenth-century legislative funeral * A.B., 1938, Harvard College; J.D., 1941, Wayne State University Law School; LL.M., 1948, Harvard Law School. Member, Governor Rockefeller's Commission Appointed to Review New York State's Abortion Law (1968). Associate Professor of Law, New York Law School. Member of the Michigan and United States Supreme Court Bars. ** For invaluable aid in the task of historical research which had to be done to prepare this article, I make grateful acknowledgment to Dr. Edith Henderson, Curator of the Rare Book Room of the Library of the Harvard Law School (and Secretary for the United States of America of The Selden Society), and to Mr. Anthony Grech, Librarian of The Association of the Bar of the City of New York. For first editions, I normally had to go to Cambridge, but Mr. Grech's library contains nearly everything I needed in second and later editions, including a magnificent vulgate edition of the Year Books that was once owned by President Martin Van Buren. I also wish to express gratitude to Professor Samuel Thorne, of the Harvard Law School faculty, for time he has generously spent with me discussing the various problems presented by this paper, and to my colleague, Professor Joel Lee, of the New York Law School faculty, for some invaluable leads in clearing up the long-mooted question as to how soon after the accession of Edward III Sir Geoffrey Scrope resumed his place as Chief Justice of the King's Bench. For any errors of emphasis or content, however, I take full responsibility. Means, The Law of New York Concerning Abortion and the Status of the Foetus, 1664- 1968: A Case of Cessation of Constitutionality, 14 N.Y.L.F. 411 (1968).

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