to overturn Roe V Wade then essentially that they are saying that Life begins at conception.
When would citizenship begin? at conception or at birth? A couple I know swear that their daughter was concieved in Canada, yet the daughter was born in Atlanta. Would she be a citizen of the US in Canadian law and Canadian citizen in the eyes of US law?
Could potentially illegal aliens cross the border, conceieve, return to their native country, give birth 9 months later and then the offspring would have a claim of US citizenship?
The 14th Amendment still states that citizenship applies to anyone born in the United States.
Congress and SCOTUS could grant legal protection to fetuses and outlaw abortion, but additional legislation would be required to expand the citizenship requirements.
I think anyone would have a very hard time proving exactly where they were when conception took place unless it was a case of in vitro fertilization.
How about voting elibility? Could people who were born 17 years and three months before an election register to vote with the claim that they’d actually lived 18 years? The 26th amendment doesn’t specify time from birth just age.
not a likely scenario, but an interesting starting point for this discussion. Since you mentioned RvW, this thread seems destined for GD.
Citizenship is acquired only through birth, by any definition I’ve ever heard. According to my trusty desktop dictionary, citizenship includes the rights, responsibilities, and duties of a citizen; someone who is loyal to or entitled to by birth to a state or nation. A fetus has no responsibilities or duties, and cannot swear allegiance to a nation-state.* However, a fetus can have limited rights, depending on whether the mother wants the child that will likely result. In at least a few states, manslaughter laws apply when an unborn child is killed. If “Life Begins at Conception” is written into law, I suspect that citizenship would not take effect until birth. There is simply no way to verify the location or time of conception. At least at birth, there are a few credible witnesses on hand More rights would be extended to the fetus, but its status as a non-citizen would remain unchanged. Its legal age can only be measured accurately from the point of birth. The period of conception and length of pregnancy is too nebulous and murky for it to be otherwise. You’ll still have to wait 21 years after leaving the womb to have a legal drink.
Undoubtedly, their daughter is a natural born US citizen. There is an interesting parallel thread on the birth of Chester A. Arthur here. I can only assume that her parents were both US citizens. If that is true, their daughter could have been born on Neptune, and would still be considered a natural born US citizen. The location of conception or birth is of no consequnce.
[sub]* neither can children, but they are unquestionably citizens, if not in the Roman sense of the word with all of the associated duties and responsibilities.[/sub]
If Roe v. Wade were to be overturned, it would have no such implications. After all, we don’t currently have any laws based upon the notion that “life begins in the third trimester.” Overturning Roe v. Wade would not imply that life begins at conception; it would simply state that laws forbidding abortion are not uncostitutional violations of privacy.
United States Constitution, Amendment XIV, Section 1: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” (emphasis added)
The states may declare that “life begins at conception.” The federal government may also declare it. Absent a Constitutional amendment repealing this definition of citizenship and replacing it with “all fetuses conceived in the United States are citizens…” then they have no legal force on the citizenship of fetuses. Where “life begins at conception” laws would have an effect is things like murder statutes and other criminal and civil laws affecting the rights of persons without regard to citizenship to be free from harm.
Of course, of course. Cardinal rule of SDMB #73: If you’re not legally 100% precise in all statements, they WILL be parsed and nitpicked. I meant birth as opposed to conception. I thought that was plain, but upon rereading it, it does deserve clarification.
