In the Name of the Son: The Strategic Importance of Prenatal Personhood in Abortion Law

Authors

Alejandro Madrazo, Georgetown Law Center

Abstract

Prenatal personhood has been used as a vehicle for restricting abortion rights and other reproductive rights. This Article explores how, through narrative, the question of the status of prenatal life shapes the structure of debates over abortion law and reproductive rights. Whether prenatal hfe is deemed a person or not determines the narrative structures that can be deployed around abortion and, in consequence, strategically orients these debates by determining the key questions that must be addressed and the scope of answers that can be provided. By carrying out a comparative analysis of opinions of local, national and international courts from around the world-but focusing mostly in the Americas-this Article teases out the narrative structures that are determined by the answer to the question of the legal status of prenatal life. Furthermore, it explores the implications of narrative structures on how the issues involved are framed and conceived of.

Disciplines

Constitutional Law | First Amendment | Jurisprudence | Law | Law and Gender

Recommended Citation

Alejandro Madrazo, In the Name of the Son: The Strategic Importance of Prenatal Personhood in Abortion Law, 20 Cardozo J. Equal Rts. & Soc. Just. 623 (2014).
Available at: https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/cardozoersj/vol20/iss3/4