An Embryo is Not a Person: Rejecting Prenatal Personhood for a More Complex View of Prenatal Life,

This essay considers claims for prenatal personhood after Dobbs v. Jackson. It criticizes the decision’s adoption of a binary view of prenatal life, suggesting that courts and legislatures’ only options are full prenatal personhood or denial of protection for prenatal life. The decision also refused to draw meaningful lines about the value of prenatal life at different developmental stages, giving states vast power to infringe on pregnant people’s rights at fertilization. After describing the history of prenatal personhood in the U.S. and the places where recognition of limited prenatal personhood made inroads in the shadow of Roe v Wade, it critiques current arguments for expansion of prenatal personhood.