U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear fetal personhood appeal  

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to take up a case that questions whether unborn fetuses should have constitutional rights in the wake of the court’s June decision to overturn the right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade. 

Two formerly pregnant women, who first filed on behalf of their unborn fetuses, and a Catholic group appealed a Rhode Island Supreme Court decision that said the women didn’t have legal standing to sue over a state law that codified the right to abortion.  

After the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to overturn the right to abortion called other precedents into question, the challengers saw an opening to ask the justices to weigh in on the contentious fetal personhood debate. 

The Supreme Court declined to hear the case without comment.  

Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the Dobbs opinion earlier this year that the Supreme Court’s opinion was “not based on any view about if and when prenatal life is entitled to any of the rights enjoyed after birth,” but the decision spurred renewed efforts in some states to protect fetal personhood under state law.  

A Georgia law allowing pregnant women to claim unborn embryos as dependents on their tax returns was kicked into effect after the Dobbs decision.