Conforming to the rule of law: when person and human being finally mean the same thing in Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence

Abstract

The Fourteenth Amendment was intended to protect people from discrimination and harm from other people. Racism is not the only thing people need protection from. As a constitutional principle, the Fourteenth Amendment is not confined to its historical origin and purpose, but is available now to protect all human beings, including all unborn human beings. The Supreme Court can define "person" to include all human beings, born and unborn. It simply chooses not to do so. Science, history and tradition establish that unborn humans are, from the time of conception, both persons and human beings, thus strongly supporting an interpretation that the unborn meet the definition of "person" under the Fourteenth Amendment. The legal test used to extend constitutional personhood to corporations, which are artificial "persons" under the law, is more than met by the unborn, demonstrating that the unborn deserve the status of constitutional personhood. There can be no "rule of law" if the Constitution continues to be interpreted to perpetuate a discriminatory legal system of separate and unequal for unborn human beings. Relying on the reasoning of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court may overrule Roe v. Wade solely on the grounds of equal protection. Such a result would not return the matter of abortion to the states. The Fourteenth Amendment, properly interpreted, would thereafter prohibit abortion in every state.