Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

birth.

The complete extrusion of a newborn baby from the mother's body. "For purposes of criminal law - and also for those of property law, e.g. to become a holder of property and so transmit it again to new heirs, or to enable the father to obtain curtesy of his wife's lands - birth consists in extrusion from the mother's body, i.e. in having 'come into the world.' If but a foot be unextricated, there can be no murder, the extrusion must be complete, the whole body of the infant must have been brought into the world. But it is not necessary that the umbilical cord should have been severed. And to be born alive the child must have been still in a living state after having wholly quitted the body of the mother." J.W. Cecil Turner, Kenny's Outlines of Criminal Law 104 (16th ed. 1952).