When does personhood begin? (Special Report).(when does life and personhood begin)

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.

U.S. Supreme Court

Roev. Wade, 410 U.S. 113(1973)

The Congress finds that . . . scientific evidence demonstrates that the life of each individual begins at conception;. . . the Supreme Court . . . erred in not recognizing the humanity of the unborn child and the compelling interest of the several states in protecting the life of each person before birth, and . . . in excluding unborn children from the safeguards afforded by the equal protection provisions of the Constitution. . .

Sen. Helms's Human Life Amendment

(2038) to debt ceiling legislation

When the Supreme Court held in Roe v. Wade that the constitutional right of privacy encompasses a woman's decision to have an abortion, it rejected the argument that the word "person" in the Fourteenth Amendment included the unborn. Hence, it declined to extend to the fetus the Amendment's guarantees of due process and equal protection of the laws or to give the fetus a claim to constitutional rights equal to that of the pregnant woman. Turning to the separate argument that human life begins at conception and that the state may prohibit abortion because of its compelling interest in protecting the life of the fetus, the Supreme Court declared that it did not have to resolve the question of when life begins, given the lack of consensus among doctors, philosophers and theologians. It noted, however, that "there has always been strong support for the view that life does not begin until live birth." (1)