Dear Friends, Persons

If a fetus is a legal person then a pregnant woman is not a legal person. Therefore, women from birth through child-bearing age cannot be free citizens of the USA if the fetus is ruled to be a person. Why?

If the fetus is a legal person, then:

the state (federal, state or local) has an interest in all stages of every pregnancy, so:

the state requires a comprehensive data base recording all pregnancies and their

progress, and, since

abortion is ipso facto illegal, the locations and movements of all pregnant women,

and it may restrict their movements under some circumstances

the state may at any time make an assessment of the well-being of the fetus and so

require a physical examination of the pregnant woman

the state, in order to ensure the fetus’ well-being, may impose regimes of diet,

exercise and movement on the pregnant woman, including restrictions on

employment

the state may restrict the pregnant woman’s relations with others, especially intimate  relations

etc., etc., etc.

If the fetus is a legal person the pregnant woman is no more than a surrogate of the state.

If the fetus is a legal person then women of childbearing age who are not pregnant will also be under scrutiny. If you need to prove that you are not pregnant this will again require submitting to intrusive examinations. If conservatives are successful in limiting or denying access to contraception, sexually active women may be asked why aren’t you pregnant? A data base of all women of childbearing age seems a requirement to allay conservative fears that some women may be escaping their grasp. But what is childbearing age? Girls can bear children long before their bodies are sufficiently developed to undergo the unique physical stress of pregnancy and childbirth without damage. And we know that conservative legislators are perfectly willing to accept the pregnancy of, say, a ten year old girl, through rape or incest, as an expression of God’s will.

The ability of women, overall, to bear children becomes a concern of the state if the fetus is a legal person. So the state has a concern in the lives of all women from birth. It may therefore intrude on the ordinary lives of all families with daughters (independently of its prior concern with wife and mother). This intrusion must not only be medical or physical, but also moral. Since the declaration of the fetus as a legal person is grounded in religion, then moral concerns are religious concerns – following from the specific religious doctrine according to which the fetus is ruled to be a person from conception. Whether or not the state can compel belief in all daughters, it can at least compel fear: never imagine that your body is your own.

Are women over “child-bearing age” free at last? Well … the Vice President-elect of the United States of America says that the only use for post-menopausal women is that they can replace daycare by looking after their grandchildren.

If a fetus is a legal person then all women are defined by the biological function of child-bearing and nothing else. Legal personhood is not a biological category.

Love and solidarity,

Bobby