Quote Originally Posted by Koga No Goshi View Post
This is a hypothetical question for anti-abortion people.

Let's assume that we pass a law which recognizes the full rights of fetuses as human beings from the moment of conception. At that moment any form of abortion or abortive procedures or attempts is considered illegal, or a form of murder.

Does that mean that if a foreign national, visiting the United States, becomes pregnant and can verify that conception occurred during the time she was in the U.S., that her child, having full human rights under U.S. law, is entitled to citizenship?
Why, of course it is entitled to citizenship. To be precise: the fetus is entitled to the exact same rights to citizenship as newborns. The answer to the hypothetical question in paragraph three has been given in paragraph two.
If a hypothetical law is passed that recognizes the full rights of fetuses as human beings from the moment of conception, then that's that really. Nothing to it. This poses no dilemmas, paradoxes, or possible inconsistensies to anti-abortionists. On the contrary, they have just been pre-emptively solved.


The difficult question to ask anti-abortion people is: if the moment of conception marks the birth of a human being, then shouldn't an embryo be granted full rights as human beings? This then, will have some serious consequences, and even dilemmas and inconsistensies. (And it is about these that CR shared some of his thoughts). Like, for example, that of anchor conception.

The same concept poses a mirrored and reversed dilemma for pro-choicers. For example, in inheritance law (depending on jurisdiction, of course) inheritances can be transferred to the unborn. That is, they enjoy rights as if they were living. The same dilemma applies, and the question to pro-choicers is: if the moment of birth marks the beginning of a human being, then shouldn't an embryo be excluded from rights? If you grant embryos the right to property, then why not the more important right to life?