Is a Fetus a Person? The Next Big Abortion Fight: QuickTake

Personhood -- the concept of granting legal rights to the unborn at conception or a couple of months after -- is shaping into the next battleground in the fight over abortion rights in the US. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s June decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion, old state rules recognizing fetuses as people have new potency, and conservative state legislatures are pushing for powerful new statutes. Critics of these so-called personhood laws worry they will be used not only to criminalize abortion but also miscarriages, the termination of pregnancies that threaten the mother’s life, and some ...