From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Fetal protection legislation in the United States refers to laws designed to grant recognition as a "legal person" to a fetus. Such legislation is controversial because of the debate over abortion rights in the US.
Forces seeking to restrict abortion rights have seemingly adopted a strategy of promoting laws that protect both a pregnant woman and her "unborn child", with the indirect aim of reversing Roe v. Wade. For example, kicking a pregnant woman in the stomach, so that she has a miscarriage, would become a special category of crime. Not only would it become more heinous a crime to kick a pregnant woman than to kick a man or a woman who was not pregnant, but it would recognize a right seen as inherent in the fetus; in effect, granting it legal personhood.
Fetal protection laws are based on the assumption that an unborn child is just as 'human' as a freshly born baby, and therefore deserving of the full protection of the law. It is this assumption that is the heart of the fetal protection and abortion debate in the US
Laws against certain types of abortion procedures would also seem to fall into this category.
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