For those who believe that life begins at conception, at what point should an individual legally be declared..

Question

a "person"? If at conception, should a pregnant woman get a dependent tax deduction for her child before it is born? If a woman miscarries due to self-induced excess stress, poor diet, or drugs/alcohol, should she be tried for manslaughter?

If a person isn't legally defined as a person before birth, why protect life before that?

Answer 1

I think it is up to the public lawmaking process to decide what benefits that the parents and the unborn receive. Through our representatives, we the public have decided that the economic hardships caused by child rearing begin at birth but we've also allowed additional medical coverage for pregnancy which begins at conception.

You raise some good questions but all of your questions ought to be answered by the people through our representative democracy and not by the courts. Let the people rule.

Answer 2

Actually, the more fundamental use of the word "person" is in the Constitution. (Not so sure that the Internal Revenue Code uses "person" in connection with dependent children.) Specifically, the 14th Amendment, which states that no "person" shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.
Subjective belief about when life begins takes your question out of the legal arena into philosophy or morality. As for the legal issue, the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade (which many
cite to but few have read) deferred to science and medicine for a determination of when the fetus is a person and left the door open in the Court's written opinion for the possibility of a more precise scientific or medical determination of that issue
post-Wade. So, according to Roe v. Wade, the threshold question is one for the scientific and medical community to determine or, at least, to provide the evidence. You're getting way ahead of yourself, and mixing legal concepts with subjective beliefs. Do you mean, assuming the medical and scientific communities were to provide evidence deemed sufficient to the Court that life (i.e., "person") begins at conception and the Court so held, would...etc. ? Is that what you mean? Then, the Court would likely have to balance the previously articulated privacy/personal autonomy issues with, at a minimum, 14th Amendment guarantees and provide, at a minimum, due process and equal protection. But, again, you would be getting way ahead of yourself.

Answer 3

I don't agree with aborting babies,but it seems a bit hypocritical of our courts to allow abortion and then convict Scott Peterson for baby killing.I wish they would quit having that double standard.It is either a life or it isn't.