Reply #26: sorry

[iverglas]

Neither "human being" nor "person" are medical terms.

Neither medicine nor science defines those terms.

"Human being" status is determined by human consensus, in human society, and refers to members of the human group. Human rights, which belong to human beings, are held by members of that group.

Human beings are entities that are born, alive and human. Any other definition would be a nonsense.

"Person" is the status of a human being under the rules of organized human groups, i.e. laws. That status has never been accorded to a fetus. One very good reason would be, again, that this would simply be an impossible nonsense. If a fetus were a human being / person, abortion for any reason whatsoever would be homicide, and none of the classical excuses/justifications (e.g. self-defence) would apply.

Your Supreme Court explicitly stated this in Roe v. Wade, which, sadly, most people who discuss U.S. abortion laws have never actually read.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=410&invol=113

(with citations omitted)

The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a "person" within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well-known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment. The appellant conceded as much on reargument. On the other hand, the appellee conceded on reargument that no case could be cited that holds that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.

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, Art. I, 2, cl. 2, and 3, cl. 3; in the Apportionment Clause, Art. I, 2, cl. 3; 53 in the Migration and Importation provision, Art. I, 9, cl. 1; in the Emolument Clause, Art. I, 9, cl. 8; in the Electors provisions, Art. II, 1, cl. 2, and the superseded cl. 3; in the provision outlining qualifications for the office of President, Art. II, 1, cl. 5; in the Extradition provisions, Art. IV, 2, cl. 2, 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, with any assurance, that it has any possible pre-natal application.

All this, together with our observation, supra, that throughout the major portion of the 19th century prevailing legal abortion practices were far freer than they are today, persuades us that the word "person," as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn. This is in accord with the results reached in those few cases where the issue has been squarely presented. Indeed, our decision in United States v. Vuitch, 402 U.S. 62 (1971), inferentially is to the same effect, for we there would not have indulged in statutory interpretation favorable to abortion in specified circumstances if the necessary consequence was the termination of life entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection.