Pleading the belly

Pleading the belly was a process in English common law which permitted a woman in the later stages of pregnancy to receive a reprieve of her death sentence until after she bore her child.

Upon making the plea, the convict was entitled to be examined by a jury of matrons, generally selected from the observers present at the trial.

If she was found to be pregnant with a quick child (that is, a foetus sufficiently developed to render its movement detectable), the convict was granted a reprieve of sentence until the next hanging time after her delivery.

[4] John Gay's The Beggar's Opera includes a scene where the character Filch picks up income working as a "child getter ... helping the ladies to a pregnancy against their being called down to sentence".

[5] As a check against this abuse of the system, the law held that no woman could be granted a second reprieve from the original sentence on the ground of subsequent pregnancy, even if the foetus had quickened.