Fetal Rights versus the Female Body: Contested Domains

This article examines the debates surrounding the personhood of the fetus in relationship to the mother as these issues were socially constructed in the Mississippi state legislature in 1990 and 1991. In examining the patriarchal assumptions that underlay the proposed Mississippi legislation, the article also addresses the legal ramifications of defining the fetus as a person whose rights are posited as equal to, or greater than, those of the pregnant woman. By relying on medical/scientific definitions of personhood, the groundwork for further refinement and monitoring of women and fetuses is being established, such that what it means to be human is increasingly defined in essentialist terms. In the final evaluation, focusing on conception as the moment in which an “unborn child” is created sets the stage for the ultimate essentialist metaphor: a eugenic definition of personhood.