Supreme Court Won't Weigh In On Fetal Personhood Case

The high court declined to take up a case out of Rhode Island over whether fetuses should have constitutional rights.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court decided not to take up a case on the so-called fetal personhood debate.  

In 2019, a Catholic group and two pregnant women sued the state of Rhode Island, arguing that a state law codifying abortion rights stripped their unborn fetuses of their constitutional rights. In May, the lower court ruled that the fetuses did not have proper legal standing. 

But after the Supreme Court's June decision in Dobbs v. Jackson overturned abortion protections, the plaintiffs urged the nation's highest court to weigh in on the question of whether or not an unborn child has any rights under the Constitution.