According to an Alabama Supreme Court Justice, a fetal homicide ruling should bring the issue of Roe V. Wade back to the Supreme Court.
As the Alabama Supreme Court upheld the state’s fetal homicide law in a ruling this month, one of the justices said the decision should force the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.
Justice Tom Parker said it is a “logical fallacy” for the government to consider a fetus a life for the purposes of a murder conviction but not when it comes to a woman deciding to end her pregnancy.
Even lawyers within the pro-life community were conflicted on whether that is the kind of challenge the high courtwould — or even should — take up, but they said the dissonance between abortion jurisprudence and other areas of law, where a fetus is granted many of the attributes of personhood, is becoming tenuous.
“Fetal homicide laws acknowledge what science has already proven: that a unique human life begins at the very moment of fertilization. Abortion laws reject that reality,” said Lila Rose, a prominent pro-life advocate and president of Live Action.
The case in Alabama involved Jessie Livell Phillips, who was convicted of killing his wife when she was eight weeks pregnant.
A jury found him guilty of murder of “two or more persons” by one act, using a 2006 law that defined “person” as including a child in utero. The court sentenced him to death.
