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New Uses. Since such laws are usually invoked only in cases of flagrant indiscretion, there is little public pressure to abolish them. But the laws are by no means dead, and new uses are occasionally found for them. Recently New Jersey successfully invoked its rarely used 179-year-old law prohibiting fornication. The case involved a pregnant mother on welfare and her former lover. Though the defense counsel argued that being pregnant when on welfare was the woman's real offense, the court gave her a suspended sentence of six months and placed her on probation for two years. Her lover was sentenced to three months in jail.