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The article examines the pro-life movement's efforts to advance the legal, moral, and political arguments for fetal personhood in the period following the Supreme Court's case Planned Parenthood v. Casey. It begins with an overview of the efforts to define the fetus as a legal person prior to Casey, and proceeds to describe the opportunity created for pro-life forces by the court's ambiguous holding on the issue of personhood. Examining rhetorical and legislative strategies, the article argues that pro-life forces have transformed their framing of the abortion issue, from one that pits fetal rights against maternal rights, to one that emphasizes the unique and intimate bond between the woman and the "child." This rhetorical shift coincides with legislative agendas that indirectly attack the central claim of mainstream pro-choice activists: That the fetus is not a person. The article examines the imagery used by pro-life activists and the substantive statutory reforms they advocate. By casting the relationship between woman and fetus as nonadversarial and pursuing legislation expanding the rights of the fetus, such activists have been effective in establishing indices of fetal personhood. The article contends that these strategies are effective and serve to undermine the rhetorical and legal foundations of the abortion right.
Keywords: abortion / fetal rights / legal personhood / Planned Parenthood v. Casey / pro-choice / pro-life
Sweeter even than to have had the joy of caring for children of my own has it been to me to help bring about a better state of things for mothers generally, so that their unborn little ones could not be willed away from them.
-Susan B. Anthony1
The quotation above appears on the Feminists for Life (FFL) Web site in the "About FFL" section, which represents the mission of the organization as eliminating the false antagonism between the rights of a woman and her fetus and advocating for reforms that protect the unborn and promote the well-being of those faced with an unplanned pregnancy. Certainly, it is true that early feminists like Anthony advocated for full parental rights for mothers, and recognized the many ways in which reproduction affected women's lives and defined their roles. Yet the assertion that the interests of the fetus and the interests of the pregnant woman necessarily coincide...