Law: THE BIRTH OF HABEAS FETUS

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On a bench outside the county jail in Waukegan, Ill., last month, Attorney Charles Wilson tried to console Roger Hubbard, 36. Hubbard's wife Carol, 30, who was five months pregnant, was being held in jail on charges stemming from a shoplifting case, and Hubbard could not afford the $23,000 bail. Wilson explained that since he had defended a man charged in the same case, it would be a conflict of interest for him to represent Carol. How, then, to get her out of jail?

Suddenly, Wilson recalled that Illinois' abortion law asserts in a preamble that life begins at conception. In an application probably never dreamed of by the right-to-life movement, Wilson decided to "represent the couple's unborn baby, seeking its release through a writ of habeas corpus on the theory that it had been deprived of liberty without having done anything wrong. Before Carol was released last week on other grounds, Wilson had tried his creative argument on a local judge and the Illinois Supreme Court.

Both dismissed it. Apparently they found the logic inconceivable. ∎