'Personhood' to be theme at 2010 Roe anniversary


At the annual March for Life Jan. 22, pro-life groups will use the anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision to raise the profile of "personhood."

The term is used by a movement in state legislatures to define unborn babies as persons, affording them the same guaranteed right to life as all other Americans.

Probably the first definitive statement on the idea came from Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the majority opinion for Roe v. Wade, when he said:

"The appellee and certain amici [pro-lifers] 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 [14th] Amendment."

Read more here.


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