Murdering a fetus?

This week was an interesting week in Dubai, to say the least. A Lebanese woman was convicted of murder after accidentally killing her fetus when she was involved in a car accident. She was 9 months pregnant when the accident happened.



The question now is; did the public prosecutor have nothing else to work on? Is there so little crime that he should go after a mother who lost her unborn child and traumatize her further? Reckless and negligent driving and not keeping a proper distance is one thing. I agree. Fine the living daylights out of those, but don't take it to a point where it becomes laughable.



However, having said that, as I was driving to the office this morning, I saw another woman driving like a total maniac. Swerving in and out of lanes and break-neck speed. So I thought of this case and I wondered if this was not exactly what happened in the case mentioned above.



Surely if this was so and there was evidence of such driving, there might be some explanation of the prosecutor's decision to go after a young mother-to-be.



Critisising the prosecution, without applying the audi alterem partem rule is being an arm chair critic, which most of us are when we read these kind of stories in the newspapers. The question therefore is what were the circumstances and why does the prosecutor not spill the beans.



If I think of what I saw this morning and take into account that a fetus is a living being -according to the prosecution - then living cells must be deemed living organisms as well. So if she of the daredevil driver did have an accident this morning, I think the prosecution should do their homework get a medical done and see if she actually killed some of her eggs in the process. If so, prosecute her for murder. The same would go for sperm, but then killing sperm might turn into a huge back log for the prosecuting authority, with all the w*nkers in Dubai....