The next frontier of the abortion debate is rapidly approaching. It is the movement to legislate that life begins at the instant of conception, and that fetuses in the womb (or stored in a tank in an In Vitro Fertilization clinic) are human beings, with the same rights as other human beings. Thus, to kill a fetus for any reason (e.g., to save the life of the mother, or because the pregnant girl is a 10-year-old victim of rape, or because the fetus has fatal abnormalities) is murder.
Are fetuses “natural persons?” Some people think so. They have the right to believe whatever they want, but they should not have the right to impose their beliefs on others.
But they are trying.
One-third of states have laws defining “fetal personhood.” In Georgia, individuals can claim a $3,000 tax deduction for an unborn child. The deduction applies even if there is a stillbirth or miscarriage. State auditors may have to dig into medical records to verify claims.
Critics complain that the state of Georgia is hypocritical: “This was not necessarily a good faith attempt to support people in pregnancy because, at the same time as this was being passed, we were still fighting to expand Medicaid coverage for pregnant people beyond 60 days after delivery,” [Kwajelyn Jackson, executive director of the Feminist Women’s Health Center in Atlanta] said. She also stressed the need to improve Georgia’s maternal mortality rates, which are the worst in the country, and address systemic racism within health care, which results in Black maternal mortality rates being twice as high as white women in the state.”
In Texas, a woman who was given a ticket for driving alone in the HOV lane claimed that she shouldn’t have to pay the ticket because she was 34 weeks pregnant. But Texas has not yet passed a fetal personhood law, so she was required to pay the ticket.
In several high-profile murder cases, men have been charged with a double homicide when they killed their pregnant wife.
Planned Parenthood is keeping watch on Republican efforts to pass a federal law recognizing “fetal personhood.”
Similar to what we’ve seen on the state level, anti-abortion members of Congress have pushed ”fetal personhood” attacks for years, and fights are expected to continue this spring. Federal lawmakers trying to ban abortion have tried to embed personhood language in maternal health bills, birth control bills, tax codes, child support laws, college savings plans, COVID-19 relief packages, and essential safety-net programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. And they aren’t stopping. Like other personhood attacks, if taken to its most extreme, this language could affect birth control — including the pill, IUDs, and emergency contraception.
Currently, 125 members in the House, including Speaker Mike Johnson, support the Life at Conception Act, a federal personhood bill that would extend all inalienable rights afforded to Americans by the Constitution to apply at all stages of life, including to fetuses and embryos. Last year, during the first full Congress since Dobbs, as many as 166 members signed on as co-sponsors.
This attempt to legally define when personhood begins would make all abortion illegal nationwide. And, like the legislation proposed at the state level, would have grave implications for a range of sexual and reproductive health care, including some forms of contraception, infertility treatment, and miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy management. This language could also, in some circumstances, subject health care providers to criminal charges. “Personhood” language in our federal code would take away people’s ability to make safe and healthy choices about their reproductive futures and well-being.
Laws of this kind are troubling because they turn religious beliefs into legal mandates. They inject Big Government into the most intimate details of people’s private lives. And, they are profoundly hypocritical. The states that insist on “fetal personhood” are the very ones that oppose almost every federal or state program to improve the lives of children. They are states that reject the expansion of Medicaid, leaving large numbers of people without medical insurance; they are states that weaken child labor laws, allowing teens to work long hours in dangerous jobs. They are states whose elected representatives oppose extending the child tax credit, which cut child poverty in half during the year in which it was in effect. Almost any legislation you can think of that would have improved the lives of born children has been opposed by the same people who insist on “fetal personhood.”
What’s the lesson in all this? Each of us may see it differently.
Here’s what I conclude:
Republicans care passionately about fetuses and unborn children. Once they are born, the children are on their own.
The hypocrisy is when Republicans say government should be smaller and stay away from laws governing businesses yet they will meddle with the healthcare of women telling them what they can and can’t do.
The GOP no longer believes in small government and staying out of personal decisions.
My daughter moved to Georgia last year and has recently filed her taxes in that state for the first time. The tax form asks “How many unborn dependents are you claiming?” When you get to the low-income section of the tax form though, it states that unborn dependents can NOT be claimed. I guess in Georgia only non-low-income feti qualify as people.
I saw a cartoon recently where a guy says to the tax collector, “Sure, I have 28 unborn fetuses and I’m claiming them all. They are in the freezer next to the ice cream.”
You’re never going to get a perfect definition of whether and when a fetus is a “human being,” let alone a “person” under the law. Arbitrary lines have to be drawn and they have to be grounded in practicality and common sense. Declaring fetuses to be natural persons with all the rights of people who have actually been, you know, born is ungrounded in both of those things.
This is a scientific question with a scientific answer. Until well after the 24th week of gestation, the neuronal integration and physical parts of the brain necessary for the eventual emergence of sentience are NOT–I repeat, NOT–in place. A lump of tissue that is not sentient is not a human being any more than a lump of coals is.
Control over their reproduction and their bodies should belong to women, in consultation with their doctors.
When Does Consciousness Arise in Human Babies? | Scientific American
“When are the neuronal integration and physical parts of the brain necessary for the eventual emergence of sentience in place?” is not the same question as “when is a fetus a human being” or a “natural person.”
That’s not necessarily the same question as “natural person”
Ignore that last half sentence paragraph
I am suggesting that being capable of sentience is one of the conditiones sine quibus non of being a human or a person–an essential but not sufficient characteristic, just as being round is essential to being a circle but is not sufficient to making something a circle.
I posed this question to my old friend, Ralph, who is a biologist, now 91 years old. His reply was a bit surprising. He viewed life on a continuum without a true point at which one could say that life has begun. I think your viability argument has validity, but it is obvious that things that happen in utero can vastly affect viability.
All that said, I think the viability approach offers the best compromise that will respect the autonomy of the mother without harming the child.
I do not accept that the child is father to the man.
Well said. Though there is no fixed point (the paradox of the heap applies here), there are clearly points where “not human” and “human” apply.
And my argument was based on capacity for sentience, not on viability, though these happen to coincide, roughly.
“Natural person” is not a term with any rational meaning.
That’s sort of my point. The meaning of these terms is arbitrary (as in arbitrated). Actually the same applies to “human being.”
We cannot forgo having working definitions of “person” and “human being.” We have a lot of laws, for example, that apply to such entities.
Correct.
It would be interesting to make a list of the bizarre consequences of deciding that fetuses are humans and/or persons. So, we would need to stop arresting pregnant criminals because the persons inside them have a right not to be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention, and since it is the mother in each of these cases who is the criminal and not the fetus, this would be a violation of the fetus’s rights as a person.
Child protective services with the right to take fetuses away from neglectful or abusive parents.
Fetuses not allowed to go to R rated movies.
HAAAAA!!!!! This is getting to be fun!!!!
–The Not-so-Nouveau Bob
If I were a rich man, I would hire Flerp to make such a list! In fact, I would hire Flerp as my lawyer whenever I needed one, if I could afford him and lived in New York.
Only $1400 an hour or so . . .
As I said, . . . .
But seriously, others here. This guy is smart AF and extremely capable at putting together an argument. Cheap at twice the price.
We would also have to stop detaining pregnant women at the border for the same reason.
Fetuses are persons like corporations are people. The terms are politically motivated to give more credibility to right wing beliefs.
What we need is a policy that gives us the best for all of us. I would suggest that the need to care for a person carrying a possible life is extremely important and places a unique burden on that person that is unavoidable. The Republican Party has a pretty poor track record of choosing the path toward what’s best for all of us, but sometimes the person carrying the potential life can act in ways that are detrimental to human development as well. This second problem is where there is a problem. My liberty ends when it restricts your liberty. What to do?
I claim the best that we can do is to allow reasonable people the freedom to make reasonable decisions. A few people will be pregnant who do not have the intellectual capacity to make good decisions, but these cases may be judged by medical and family individuals. We may not like giving the pregnant person freedom to make the wrong choice, but the probability that she will make it correctly is higher than if society makes it. If this is not true, why do we argue as children of the enlightenment that individual freedoms are of importance?
I suggest that government ought not to be in the business of choosing and imposing one conservative, misogynistic religious viewpoint on an entire population.
I further suggest that the appropriate person to be concerned with a “possible life” is the woman or Trans person with the uterus in which that possible life would be carried.
In short, a woman is a human being with the agency to make her own decisions.
The GOP does not agree. The anti-abortion laws are getting harsher , along with draconian punishments for doctors.
Birdchurn
Amen. Absolutely.
Roy: The religious right has a huge anti-abortion contingent that is also a huge voting block. So we get politicians (who are only following the power of that block of voters and need not be truly committed to the anti-abortion cause) to “support” draconian anti-abortion laws.
On the other hand, it seems the same huge religious right do not like their pocketbooks influenced by democratic policies that support children’s well-being regardless of their social and economic situations.
How much does it cost in dollars to support anti-abortion policies or to vote accordingly? On the other hand, how much does it cost in dollars to support the well-being and growth of poor children and families? That’s another story. And along the way, the religious right maintains its fictional status as “religious” or “Christian” on the grounds that they are anti-abortion).
That is an explanation of, but not an excuse for, the hypocrisy of the Republicans on this issue. As I see it, it’s just another aspect of runaway capitalism, and the degenerate greed it feeds into, along with the tradeoff/ transactional mentality that it produces when not curbed by a culture of moderation, reasonableness, and human compassion.
The scene is a central aspect of the great failure of democracy we are living in. CBK
Separation of church and state is desperately needed.
Yes.
Good morning Diane and everyone,
Have you noticed the tendency now to say “pregnant people” instead of “pregnant women?” I find it very odd.
I decided to use that phrase above because it places women within the definition of what a person is. Conservative tradition puts women on a pedestal, a very questionable elevation.
Yes, Mamie, I have seen that phrase and I’m baffled by it.
I’ve wondered if this might be a ploy to make the abortion/reproductive rights issue less about women’s rights narrowly and make it more a family issue or an issue that even men should care about in that they are also affected by the care their female partner receives. ????
Ms Allegretti….you’re a little late to the “trans” nonsense word game. This has been going on for several years now! Breast feeding is now chest feeding and women no longer are allowed to mother their children…it’s called caregiving. We all MUST be inclusive and give those men cosplaying as women their rights (while taking away ours)! There are many other terms/words that have been changed, but some are too disgusting to post on this blog.
This whole movement has gone entirely off the rails. First, people need to understand the difference between sex (inherited) and gender (acquired). Second, they need to understand that they can experiment with the latter and that this has nothing to do with the former except that traditionally they were, unnecessarily, conflated. Third, people need to stop making idiotic statements that conflate the two, such as this nonsense about breastfeeding biological male trans women. Fourth, it absolutely should be illegal for people to assist sexual transition before full adulthood. Anyone who has ever worked with teens knows that theirs is the wind’s will. People need to be extra cautious about matters that are irreversible.
Getting Clear about the Difference between Sex and Gender | Bob Shepherd | Praxis (wordpress.com)
The whole “movement” went off the rails years ago, Bob! It should never have gained any traction since it is so ridiculous! It is misogynistic, regressive, homophobic, anti-child bunkus being put forth as human rights by angry/crazy people(mainly men). Personally, I’m 5 years into this madness and I know families who have been in longer.
Bob, I do not quite understand your vehemence that people not be allowed to transition before adulthood. I agree the process should be carefully monitored but going through all the biological changes associated with a gender that has never defined an individual seems contrary to the best interests of the individual. There are too many stories of children looking and acting like the opposite sex from an early age. How is it beneficial to force them to become biologically the opposite of what they have always identified as?
I have worked with high-school kids for a long, long time. I have known, personally, high schoolers who were vehement about having known all their lives that they were of the opposite sex who dressed accordingly and asked people to use their “correct” pronouns who then decided that this wasn’t true of them at all.
I have known high-schoolers who vehemently insisted that they were gay or lesbian who then got married to someone of the opposite sex and totally renounced being gay or lesbian.
I have known an enormous number of high-schoolers who just met the ONE FOR WHOM THEY WERE FATED FROM THE BEGINNING OF TIME who, a week later, are putting a box of roadkill or dog doo in that other person’s locker.
A high-schooler’s will is the wind’s will. It is not too much to ask to say, look, you can do all the gender transitioning you want. You can dress, speak, act, sit, walk, etc. etc. as the opposite gender. But wait on this.
Here’s something that being a high-school teacher teaches you: People who are 17 and 18 years old think that they are adults. They think that they are who they will be for life. But when they are 24 or 25, they are completely different people. They gave gone through breathtaking change that they did not see coming.
My reply is in moderation. This moderation stuff makes having a conversation exceedingly difficult.
Not anymore
Thanks, Diane.
I have a good friend whose son transitioned when he was in his twenties. I know of no more balanced and caring parent. I feel sure they were very judicious in their discussions with their offspring. This is a big thing. There are a hundred reasons to wait. Life is too short to make a bad decision, too long to make one that you will regret for a long, short time.
I don’t know much about transitioning. But I agree with those who have said that no one should undergo surgery before they are an adult.
When I think about my knowledge of trans people, I think of a college classmate who played the organ in her church, met a guy in the choir, they married—they were in their 50s—and he told her he wanted to be a woman. So he works during the day as a man, but is a woman at home. She is fine with that. I don’t know what I think about it. But in general I believe people should lead their lives as they choose in the privacy of their homes. None of my business, nor the government’s.
I knew, when I was a young man, one of the very first people, worldwide, to undergo transition surgery. She became a he and married, and the two of them adopted a child and lived happily (seriously) ever after.
This person became a friend. In those days before political correctness, he was widely known in my community as Nan the Man. Most people treated her –> him as some kind of freak, and so he/she appreciated, greatly, my friendship and understanding.
I make these arguments. They are extremely carefully reasoned out. I present them here. And NO ONE engages with the substance of them–with the premises, with the reasoning. I am not addressing you, here, Lisa, but I often get the feeling that folks glance over these things and do not actually bother to follow the reasoning because doing so would be work. I’m sorry you are having this difficult time in your confrontation of this issue, Lisa. Seriously. My heart goes out to you.
“pro life until birth and, after that, tough luck”
The Jewish Talmud explains that for the first 40 days of a woman’s pregnancy, the fetus is considered “mere fluid” and is just part of the mother’s body, like an appendix or liver. Only after the fetus’s head emerges from the womb at birth and takes a breath is the baby considered a “nefesh” – Hebrew for “soul” or “spirit” – a human person.
Legislated definitions of a fetal “personhood” prior to a live birth would violate that religious belief of Jews and therefore also violate the Constitution.
There are Christian denominations that allow abortion in most instances; these Christian denominations include the United Church of Christ and the Presbyterian Church USA. The United Methodist Church and Episcopal churches allow abortion in cases of medical necessity, and the United Universalist Association also allows abortion.
Legislation that makes abortion an act of murder would therefore also violate the religious beliefs and practices of these and other Christian denominations and would also violate the Constitution.
In 1973, the Supreme Court set “viability” — the point at which a fetus can survive outside of the womb — as the dividing line after which some restrictions can be imposed on abortion rights because even with all of today’s medical miracles to keep a prematurely born or aborted fetus alive, of all the tens of thousands of cases 90% OF FETUSES BORN AT 22 WEEKS DO NOT SURVIVE, and data shows that the majority of those that manage to be kept alive live the rest of their lives with a combination of BIRTH DEFECTS that include mental impairment, cerebral palsy, breathing problems, blindness, deafness, and other disorders that often require frequent hospitalizations during their lifetimes.
The University of London scientist whose research is cited by the Supreme Court in its ruling to take away abortion rights says that his research has been misrepresented by Justice Alito and the Supreme Court’s activist conservative majority. Neuroscientist Dr. Giandomenico Iannetti says that the Court is ABSOLUTELY WRONG to say that his research shows that a fetus can feel pain when it is less than 24 weeks of development. “My results by no means imply that,” Dr. Iannetti declares. “I feel they were used in a clever way to make a point.” And Dr. John Wood, molecular neurobiologist at the University, points out that all serious scientists agree that a fetus can NOT feel pain until at least 24 weeks “and perhaps not even then.” Dr. Vania Apkarian, head of the Center for Transitional Pain Research at Chicago’s Feinberg School of Medicine, says that the medical evidence on a fetus not feeling pain before 24 weeks or longer has not changed in 50 years and remains “irrefutable”.
Once again, before about 24 weeks, the mechanisms in the brain necessary for sentience are not present. Ending the life of the fetus before that time is not ending the life of a sentient creature. I think that sentience is a sine qua non for personhood.
And, ofc, actual sentience does not begin until a considerable time after birth.
Diane: I lost a note that took over an hour to think through because I couldn’t copy my text BEFORE I “sent” it. Somehow, I have to log-on each time I write, but it usually takes my notes and THEN I copy them for my own files. (I don’t know why.)
This time, my note just disappeared. (It didn’t tell me it was “in moderation,” though it may still show up.)
Is there any way WordPress could restore the ability to copy one’s own notes BEFORE sending them? The hindrance puts a damper on my even trying to write anything but three word sentences.
On signing in: I got into a circular firing range with WordPress: For some reason, I couldn’t sign in, and so when I tried to re-up, it said my e-mail was already being used. AARRGGGHHH. CBK
Well, that note went through right away. Go figure.
Being the optimist that I am, I’ll try again: The other note was to explain the Republican hypocrisy about abortion and the support of children’s well-being AFTER they are born. . . . to explain, but not to excuse.
It’s About the Money in the pockets of the religious right: Politicians follow the power of the huge voting block of the religious right, even when they don’t give a hoot about abortion. But that same group of people won’t support (democratic) policies that secure the well-being of children as they grow up in poor economic circumstances, or who are the “wrong color.”
But how much does it cost in dollars to support anti-abortion policies? On the other hand, how much does it cost in dollars to support long-term policies that concern “other people’s” children’s well-being as they grow to adulthood?
It’s not capitalism per se, but off-the-rails capitalism that feeds into human greed and that tends to produce a transactional mentality that sees everything in terms of “what do I get from this?” . . . mostly in short-term dollars. What is the “payoff” (in dollars for me) in educating and providing the basics for children to thrive?
The “topper” is that the religious right feels so religiously good about themselves by fostering the fiction of being “religious” or “Christian” . . . because they are anti-abortion. Why not? it’s certainly cheap enough. CBK
In Roe v. Wade (1973), Justice Harry Blackmun researched – and struggled with – the question, when does human life begin?
The majority decision in Roe noted this:
“The Constitution does not define ‘person’ in so many words. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment contains three references to ‘person.’ The first, in defining ‘citizens,’ speaks of ‘persons born or naturalized in the United States’” The word also appears both in the Due Process Clause and in the Equal Protection Clause. ‘Person’ is used in other places in the Constitution: in the listing of qualifications for Representatives and Senators, in the Emolument Clause, in the provision outlining qualifications for the office of President, and the superseded Fugitive Slave Clause 3; and in the Fifth, Twelfth, and Twenty-second Amendments, as well as in 2 and 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. But in nearly all these instances, the use of the word is such that it has application only POSTNATALLY. None indicates that it has any possible pre-natal application. [Emphasis mine]
In that case, the state of Texas made claim that human life begins at conception.
The Court said this:
“Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception. We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.”
The Court decision went on:
“There has always been strong support for the view that life does not begin until live birth. This was the belief of the Stoics. It appears to be the predominant, though not the unanimous, attitude of the Jewish faith. It may be taken to represent also the position of a large segment of the Protestant community, insofar as that can be ascertained; organized groups that have taken a formal position on the abortion issue have generally regarded abortion as a matter for the conscience of the individual and her family. As we have noted, the common law found greater significance in quickening. Physicians and their scientific colleagues have regarded that event with less interest and have tended to focus either upon conception, upon live birth, or upon the interim point at which the fetus becomes ‘viable,’ that is, potentially able to live outside the mother’s womb, albeit with artificial aid. Viability is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks.”
This was where abortion rights and “the right to life” stood, until Samuel Alito and his Republican Taliban colleagues imposed their narrow religious beliefs on the rest of American in Dobbs v. Jackson (2022).
When Alito’s Dobbs draft leaked in the media, political analyst Ron Brownstein wrote thisi n May, 2022, in describing what the Supreme Court religious zealots were about to do:
“Alito’s draft, if finalized, would place the GOP-appointed Supreme Court majority firmly on a collision course with the priorities and preferences of the racially and culturally diverse younger generations born since 1980, who now constitute a majority of all Americans and who overwhelmingly support abortion rights…That shift, which Trump hastened with his overt appeals to the racial and social grievances of the most culturally conservative white Americans, has fueled the increasing volatility and belligerence of modern politics—and it only stands to intensify…For decades, a majority of Americans have supported legalized abortion in at least some circumstances. Opposition to overturning Roe v. Wade hit 69 percent in a CNN survey earlier this year, and 61 percent in a poll released by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute on Tuesday. In the PRRI poll, 64 percent of respondents said abortion should remain legal in all (28 percent) or most (36 percent) circumstances…The biggest exception to this trend: A large majority of white evangelical Americans, a cornerstone GOP constituency, oppose legal abortion.”
NPR reported this in early May, 2022:
“6 in 10 U.S. adults (61%) say that abortion should be legal in most or all cases…While the rate of abortions increased significantly in the decade after Roe v. Wade, it has since decreased to below the 1973 level…Pregnancy and childbirth are far more dangerous than getting an abortion, according to data from the CDC…Over 90% of abortions happen in the first trimester (by 13 weeks)…Medical researchers agree a fetus is not capable of experiencing pain until the third trimester, somewhere between 29 or 30 weeks…More than 60% of abortion patients have a religious affiliation.”
The Guttmacher Institute, “a leading research and policy organization committed to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights in the United States,” reports these data related to abortion:
“About 61% of abortions are obtained by women who have one or more children…The reasons women give for having an abortion underscore their understanding of the responsibilities of parenthood and family life. Three-fourths of women cite concern for or responsibility to other individuals; three-fourths say they cannot afford a child; three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents; and half say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner…Fifty-four percent of women who have abortions had used a contraceptive method (usually the condom or the pill) during the month they became pregnant.”
It would appear — from the data — that the conservative Supreme Court members AND the Republican Party are at war with women, and especially POOR women.
More Guttmacher data:
“About half of American women will have an unintended pregnancy, and nearly one-third will have an abortion, by age 45.
• The overall U.S. unintended pregnancy rate remained stagnant between 1994 and 2006, but unintended pregnancy increased 50% among poor women, while decreasing 29% among higher-income women.
• Overall, the abortion rate decreased 8% between 2000 and 2008, but abortion increased 18% among poor women, while decreasing 28% among higher-income women.
• Nine in 10 abortions occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
• A broad cross section of U.S. women have abortions:
Republicans are finding out that the dystopian world they have created is not popular, and represents a clear and present danger to ALL civil liberties in the American republic.
Here’s how Margaret Atwood explained it in The Atlantic (May 13, 2022):
“When does a fertilized human egg become a full human being or person?…The hard line of today’s anti-abortion activists is at ‘conception,’ the moment at which a cluster of cells becomes ‘ensouled.”
“But any such judgment depends on a religious belief—namely, the belief in souls. Not everyone shares such a belief. But all, it appears, now risk being subjected to laws formulated by those who do. That which is a sin within a certain set of religious beliefs is to be made a crime for all.”
“It ought to be simple: If you believe in ‘ensoulment’ at conception, you should not get an abortion, because to do so is a sin within your religion. If you do not so believe, you should not—under the Constitution—be bound by the religious beliefs of others. But should the Alito opinion become the newly settled law, the United States looks to be well on the way to establishing a state religion…Massachusetts had an official religion in the 17th century. In adherence to it, the Puritans hanged Quakers.”
“The Alito opinion purports to be based on America’s Constitution. But it relies on English jurisprudence from the 17th century, a time when a belief in witchcraft caused the death of many innocent people. The Salem witchcraft trials were trials—they had judges and juries—but they accepted “spectral evidence,” in the belief that a witch could send her double, or specter, out into the world to do mischief. Thus, if you were sound asleep in bed, with many witnesses, but someone reported you supposedly doing sinister things to a cow several miles away, you were guilty of witchcraft. You had no way of proving otherwise.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/supreme-court-roe-handmaids-tale-abortion-margaret-atwood/629833/
As Ben Franklin was to have said when asked what kind of government the Founders had created,
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
Alito’s thinking, because I can know such things, is such that:
What’s reason got to do with it? CBK
You should ask the government if they are going to start assigning fetuses social security numbers.