GESTATION, UTERO-GESTATION. In Medical Jurisprudence. The time during which a female, who has conceived, carries the embryo or foetus in her uterus.
This directly involves the duration of preg nancy, questions concerning which most fre quently arise in cases of contested legitima cy. The descent of property and peerage may be made entirely dependent upon the settlement of this question, as to which see PREGNANCY.
There are some women to whom it is pe culiar always to have the normal time of delivery anticipated by two or three weeks. Montgomery, Preg. 264. So, also, there are many cases establishing the fact that the usual period is sometimes exceeded by one, two, or more weeks, the limits of which it is difficult or impossible to determine. Coke seems inclined to adopt a peremptory rule that forty weeks is the longest time allowed by law for gestation. Co. Litt. 123 b. But although the law of some countries pre scribes the time from conception -withinwhich the child must be born to be legiti mate, that of England and America fixes no precise limit, but admits the possibility of the birth's occurring previous or subsequent to the usual time.
A conviction will not be disturbed be cause the child was born within a shorter time after the alleged intercourse than the ordinary period of gestation; Peterson v. People, 74 Ill. App. 178. It is proper to charge the jury that they must be satisfied that the defendant had sexual intercourse with the complainant within the period in which, in the ordinary course of nature, the child could be begotten; Sonnenberg v. State, 124 Wis. 124, 102 N. W. 233.
The following are cases in which this ques tion will be found discussed: 3 Bro. C. C. 349; Gardner Peerage case, Le Merchant Re port; Cro. Jac. 686; 7 Hazard, Reg. of Penn. 363; 2 Wh. & Stine, Med. Jur. § 4; 2 Witth. & Beck. Med. Jur. 264. See PREGNANCY; FETUS ; VIABILITY.