The anti-abortion movement’s strategy to assign legal rights and benefits to fetuses, embryos, and fertilized eggs is already creating chaos in the lives of those who are pregnant, seek to be pregnant, or want to prevent pregnancy. Giving legal rights to fetuses, embryos, and fertilized eggs takes away pregnant people’s rights to make their own decisions about their bodies, lives, and futures and opens the door to government intrusion into pregnancy in unprecedented ways.

While those leading this strategy openly admit their goal is to ban abortion nationwide without exception, a nationwide abortion ban is only one of the many consequences of this dangerous strategy – some of which are already occurring. The following materials provide more information on this legal strategy, often described as “fetal personhood”, including why and how anti-abortion advocates are pursuing this strategy and the harms that are flowing or will flow out of it. Additionally, recent research underscores the public’s general lack of awareness of the effort to assign rights to embryos and fetuses, as well as the best ways to communicate about and push against this dangerous strategy.

Factsheets

Read factsheet #1: Why Those Opposed to Abortion Are Pursuing a Legal Strategy of Granting Rights to Embryos and Fetuses here.

Read factsheet #2: How Lawmakers and Courts Are Granting Legal Rights to Fetuses and Embryos here.

Read factsheet #3: The Harms of Equating Embryos and Fetuses to Persons Under the Law here.