Also known as: fetuses · foetus · foetuses · fetal · foetal · unborn child
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
An unborn human offspring from the end of the eighth week after conception until birth. Legal recognition of a fetus determines the scope of state regulatory authority over abortion and supports causes of action for prenatal injury when the child is born alive.
Felicity French, a resident of State X, sought an abortion at eight weeks for a diagnosed fetal anomaly. The state statute prohibited the procedure after six weeks. The clinic denied the request under the statute. Felicity's federal challenge failed because authority to regulate abortion before viability had returned to the states.
Flora Ford discovered she was pregnant and wished to terminate before viability. State law criminalized the procedure. Flora challenged the statute in federal court. The court held that the right of personal privacy encompassed the abortion decision before viability.
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Francisco Frost's wife sought an abortion at twenty weeks. The state required spousal notification. The couple challenged the requirement. The court struck it down because the provision imposed an undue burden on the woman's pre-viability choice.
Fumiko Fujimoto underwent a procedure to terminate a pregnancy at twenty-two weeks. State law banned the dilation-and-extraction method. The physician faced prosecution. The court held the ban unconstitutional for lacking an exception to preserve maternal health.
Felix Franco operated an abortion clinic serving patients before viability. State regulations required admitting privileges at local hospitals and strict facility standards. The clinic challenged the rules. The court found the requirements imposed an undue burden on access to pre-viability abortions.
Floyd Franklin's partner sought an abortion at fifteen weeks in a state that banned the procedure after six weeks. The clinic refused service. The couple sued, asserting a federal right. The court dismissed the claim because no federal constitutional right to abortion existed and regulatory power had returned to the states.
No. The Supreme Court has declined to hold that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. Recognition of personhood would have collapsed challenges to abortion restrictions, but the Court has never adopted that position.
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A state may prohibit abortion of a nonviable fetus subject only to rational basis review. Authority to regulate or prohibit abortion before viability returned to the states, and such measures need only be rationally related to a legitimate interest such as protecting potential life.
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Yes. One who tortiously causes harm to an unborn child is subject to liability to the child if the child is born alive. The claim accrues upon live birth and compensates for the harm sustained.
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Any actual period of gestation is added to the permissible measuring period. The interest must vest, if at all, within lives in being plus twenty-one years, and the law expressly accommodates the gestational period that exists when the interest is created.
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Injury to a fetus resulting in death before live birth did not constitute homicide. If the injury caused the live birth of a child who later died from that injury, the resulting death could constitute homicide.
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…with Art. 1195, compose Chapter 9 of Title 15 of the Penal Code. Article 1195, not attacked here, reads: "Art. 1195. Destroying unborn child "Whoever shall during parturition of the mother destroy the vitality or life in a child in a state of being born and before actual birth, which child would otherwise have been born alive,…