Under current US law, an unborn baby only becomes a person when he or she is born. Traveling down the birth canal a few inches means the difference between murder and simply a medical procedure. One pro-life activist makes the following argument:
“Recently, in San Francisco, an unborn child was partially removed from the womb in order to have a renal tract obstruction repaired. After the surgery, the child was replaced in the womb to continue the pregnancy. Was this a person while out of the womb and then a nonperson again when back inside? Or, since the procedure involves the removal of the lower half of the body from the womb, did the child achieve personhood for its buttocks but not for its brain? These are the scientific anomalies of the Supreme Court’s decision. No wonder [former Supreme Court] Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has said that Roe versus Wade is on a collision course with itself.”
Eugene F Diamond, “an Open Letter to the Open-Minded” Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly volume 27, Winter 2004
