# What would be the legal ramifications if conception is judged to create a new person legally **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 7, 2010, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886 "2010-07-07T19:15:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886/1 "2010-07-07T19:15:27Z")
Okay, the pro-lifers get their way and every newly conceived cell is judged to be a human being with all human rights as stated by law. Would in-vitro fertilization survive, since most eggs don’t survive the freezing and thawing process? If the lab mixes up two eggs and implants them in the wrong women, wold they be guilty of kidnapping? What other scenerios would occur? ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886/2 "2010-07-07T19:49:01Z")
Spontaneous early-term abortion might sometimes be blamed on the woman for her eating habits/level of stress/whatever - manslaughter charges, perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![janeslogin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@janeslogin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/janeslogin)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886/3 "2010-07-07T21:41:09Z")
I have always thought, only half facetiously, that persons who believe that life begins at conception should have funerals whenever there is a miscarriage. I once asked, on a forum, why this was not done and go no reply. ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886/4 "2010-07-07T23:21:51Z")
You would be able get a tax deduction if you were pregnant at any time during the year. You could similarly buy life insurance on any embryo or fetus. ---
**Author:** ![lavenderviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/cdc98d/32.png) [@lavenderviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lavenderviolet)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886/5 "2010-07-07T23:42:28Z")
> [@janeslogin](#): > > I have always thought, only half facetiously, that persons who believe that life begins at conception should have funerals whenever there is a miscarriage. I once asked, on a forum, why this was not done and go no reply. I actually have heard of people doing things like that. Miscarriages are an event that does represent grief for many people, so it shouldn’t be surprising that some people need a closure ritual. (One might ask just as facetiously “Why does anyone get sad over miscarriages if it’s **not** a life?”) ---
**Author:** ![lavenderviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/cdc98d/32.png) [@lavenderviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lavenderviolet)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886/6 "2010-07-07T23:47:18Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Would in-vitro fertilization survive, since most eggs don’t survive the freezing and thawing process? It might, since I think many people see a distinction between an intentional act of killing and an unintentional loss of life. Heck, recently we had a thread in which some people were discussing that parents who accidentally leave their (born) kids in a hot car should not be prosecuted since there was no intent to kill the kid. > [@](#): > > If the lab mixes up two eggs and implants them in the wrong women, wold they be guilty of kidnapping? This seems pretty unlikely to me, again because the issue of intent usually is a factor in crimes under American law. If there was no intention to “kidnap”, why would it be a crime? ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886/7 "2010-07-07T23:57:27Z")
It would take years to settle a lot of legal issues. New legislation would come slowly and there would probably be a lot of court challenges on both sides. > [@janeslogin](#): > > I have always thought, only half facetiously, that persons who believe that life begins at conception should have funerals whenever there is a miscarriage. I once asked, on a forum, why this was not done and go no reply. I remember the question being asked here, and the answer is simple. Funerals are for the living. Women who have miscarriages didn’t get emotionally attached so there really isn’t anything to morn. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886/8 "2010-07-08T00:18:10Z")
Women who express a desire for an abortion get put into “protective custody” and put under surveillance to “protect the child”. Women are imprisoned for life or executed for actually getting an abortion. Society and the law in general become more amoral because they have accepted a definition of “person” that places no value on thoughts and emotions; only the flesh matters. Organ harvests are outlawed, since if a clump of cells is a person then a brain dead but still breathing corpse is a person. Women’s reproductive rights and women’s rights in general suffer a severe rollback. So do civil rights in general, probably, since most of the relevant issues have been declared unimportant; desire, free choice, pain and suffering or anything else involving having a mind. And because the passage of such a law means that people who hate civil rights are now in power. ---
**Author:** ![lavenderviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/cdc98d/32.png) [@lavenderviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lavenderviolet)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886/9 "2010-07-08T00:41:16Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Women who express a desire for an abortion get put into “protective custody” and put under surveillance to “protect the child”. Women are imprisoned for life or executed for actually getting an abortion. Since lifetime imprisonment and executions of aborting women didn’t happen before when abortion was illegal I don’t know why you would expect it to happen next time. Where do you expect the funding and resources for keeping women in custody under constant surveillance for merely expressing a desire to abort to come from? Considering that prisons in general are cash-strapped and that many states have released inmates who have been convicted of actual crimes early due to lack of funds/space I don’t really see how that work in a practical way. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886/10 "2010-07-08T00:46:31Z")
Use of the car pool lane. Increase in human rights across the board, including higher status and respect for women, as they will be seen as the carriers of life. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886/11 "2010-07-08T00:49:15Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > If the lab mixes up two eggs and implants them in the wrong women, wold they be guilty of kidnapping? Seriously? Babies are indisputably people. If a hospital mixes up infants and sends them home with the wrong parents, is anyone in that scenario guilty of kidnapping? Of course not. And you knew that. ---
**Author:** ![Canadjun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886/12 "2010-07-08T01:10:39Z")
> [@lavenderviolet](#): > > Since lifetime imprisonment and executions of aborting women didn’t happen before when abortion was illegal I don’t know why you would expect it to happen next time. That’s not strictly relevant to the OP. Making an abortion illegal does \*\*not \*\*imply that a fetus or embryo has full legal rights as a person. If you **really** want to claim than a fetus or embryo is truly a new person legally then there are some pretty major legal ramifications beyond abortion becoming murder. Drinking significant amounts of alcohol or doing significant amounts of drugs becomes assault causing bodily harm. Not taking care of yourself implies not taking care of the embryo/fetus, suggesting that Child Welfare (I guess some of you guys call it CPS) step in immediately that the child is born (or sooner if a compulsory C-section is less risky to the child). etc. etc. etc. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886/13 "2010-07-08T01:17:31Z")
> [@lavenderviolet](#): > > Since lifetime imprisonment and executions of aborting women didn’t happen before when abortion was illegal I don’t know why you would expect it to happen next time. That was then, this is now. and as said its not the same anyway. > [@lavenderviolet](#): > > Where do you expect the funding and resources for keeping women in custody under constant surveillance for merely expressing a desire to abort to come from? Considering that prisons in general are cash-strapped and that many states have released inmates who have been convicted of actual crimes early due to lack of funds/space I don’t really see how that work in a practical way. They’d probably make room by releasing more violent offenders, rather like they’ve made room for the targets of the “War on Drugs”. And of course they can cut what programs there are aimed at helping women and children, since _hurting_ women and children is the point of this exercise. And yes, that matters; if you are going to ask what would happen if “X” law passed, then the intent of the political faction that wants such a law will strongly influence the results. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886/14 "2010-07-08T01:19:10Z")
Potential immigrants rush to United States to have sex. Babies from resulting pregnancies become US Citizens no matter where they are born. A benefit of a company that I worked for automatically a 5,000 life insurance policy for dependent children. Employees who have miscarriages can now make a claim on the insurance. ---
**Author:** ![lavenderviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/cdc98d/32.png) [@lavenderviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lavenderviolet)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886/15 "2010-07-08T01:36:39Z")
> [@Canadjun](#): > > Drinking significant amounts of alcohol or doing significant amounts of drugs becomes assault causing bodily harm. By that definition, breast-feeding while intoxicated or using drugs is also assault against the born infant (which is already accepted as a person by most people), but in practical reality we don’t see that being prosecuted. The one case I did find of an attempt to bring charges against a woman for breastfeeding while drunk was mostly cited by people expressing their opposition to such a charge. Does that mean those people don’t view born infants as people? While there may be isolated cases of that nature, we certainly don’t see any draconian measures like all breastfeeding women getting tested for drugs to make sure that they aren’t harming their precious infants. An even more common scenario I see regularly: Many, many kids grow up in households where their parents smoke heavily in front of the kid and yet such behavior often doesn’t lead to any intervention even when it is often clearly causing harm to the kids (for example, I have taken care of kids whose asthma was clearly being exacerbated by the parents’ smoking habits). > [@](#): > > Not taking care of yourself implies not taking care of the embryo/fetus, suggesting that Child Welfare (I guess some of you guys call it CPS) step in immediately that the child is born (or sooner if a compulsory C-section is less risky to the child). etc. etc. etc. Having worked on a labor unit, I can assure you that CPS already does get involved at birth with drug-using pregnant women or babies who are discovered to be positive for drugs at birth. Is that a bad thing? In many cases CPS involvement doesn’t mean that the child is taken away immediately - often the goal is to try to keep the bio family together. Having CPS investigation on a family with born kids doesn’t automatically mean the kids are yanked out of the home immediately, so I don’t see our society accepting a rash of compulsory c-sections because of prenatal drug use even if one thinks of the fetus as a person. ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886/16 "2010-07-08T01:40:28Z")
> [@Canadjun](#): > > compulsory C-section A phrase which should send chills down the spine of every thinking adult on earth. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886/17 "2010-07-08T02:32:12Z")
Morning-after pills and other forms of contraception that could prevent a fertilized embryo from implanting in the uterine wall might be outlawed. Ditto for birth control pills since taking a couple of them at once is basically the same as a morning-after pill. Also it’s possible home pregnancy tests might also be taken off the market or subject to access restrictions. Women would then need to a doctor to get a pregnancy test (who’s have to report postive results to the local authorities). ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886/18 "2010-07-08T02:52:58Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Also it’s possible home pregnancy tests might also be taken off the market or subject to access restrictions. Women would then need to a doctor to get a pregnancy test (who’s have to report postive results to the local authorities). What theory of law would compel this result? An embryo is a person, so legally, no more home pregnancy tests? Just how do you imagine getting from A to B? ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886/19 "2010-07-08T03:52:38Z")
This would mean every conception must be reported to the government, and “conception certificates” will replace birth certificates. It may also mean we’d use the conception date instead of the birth date for official documents, and for calculating one’s age. Age limits for various things (voting, drinking, etc) will need to be adjusted accordingly. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886/20 "2010-07-08T03:56:17Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > What theory of law would compel this result? An embryo is a person, so legally, no more home pregnancy tests? Perhaps because if a woman could test for pregnancy and not have the result reported to the government, she could easily travel outside the country to get an abortion. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-legal-ramifications-if-conception-is-judged-to-create-a-new-person-legally/545886.md?page=2)