Here is an overview of the problem:

WHAT DOES PERSONALITY MEAN?

In its decision Roe v. Wade’s 1973 granting the right to abortion nationwide, the majority of the United States Supreme Court concluded that “the word ‘person,’ as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include not the unborn child”.

Some abortion advocates say this is wrong, arguing that personality includes fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses who should be considered people with the same rights as those who are already born.

Those who advocate this personality standard want an end to all abortions and decry laws that include exceptions allowing abortion in cases of rape or incest, or fetuses with genetic abnormalities.

And the impact of personality laws could be felt beyond the regulation of abortion. They could limit in vitro fertilization, criminalize women who terminate a pregnancy or engage in behavior harmful to the fetus, and even grant the fetus alimony, tax benefits and other rights.

Opponents claim the personality standard is unconstitutional because of its broad and uncertain impact, and argue that it puts people at risk of prosecution for a number of crimes.

“Because the personality provision fails to provide sufficient notice of prohibited conduct and invites arbitrary and discriminatory application against plaintiffs and their patients, it is unconstitutionally vague,” lawyers have said. challenged Arizona law wrote.

HOW MANY STATES HAVE THESE LAWS?

Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Kansas and Missouri all have personality laws.

Georgian law is perhaps the most ambitious, granting specific rights including tax breaks and child support for unborn children. It went into effect July 20 after a federal appeals court ruled in its favor. A federal court suspended the Arizona lawat least for now.

Kansas’ 2013 law has had little practical effect since 2019, when the state’s Supreme Court declared abortion a basic right in the state. The Kansans will vote on Tuesday on whether to amend the state constitution to reverse that ruling and allow state lawmakers to restrict or ban abortion.

In 2018, Alabama voters passed a state constitutional amendment guaranteeing “the protection of the rights of the unborn child.” A 2019 abortion ban law referenced the amendment, but did not repeat the personality standard.

Voters in several other states rejected state constitutional amendments granting personality, including Colorado in 2008, 2010, and 2014, Mississippi in 2011, and North Dakota in 2014.

WHAT DIFFERS A PERSONALITY LAW FROM AN ABORTION BAN?

A decade ago, there was a schism in the anti-abortion movement. Some saw personality as impractical, especially as electoral and legislative defeats began to pile up. But personality proponents argued that these other abortion opponents lacked moral clarity.

“The big difference between the personality movement and the anti-abortion movement is that the personality movement views all innocent human lives as cherished and deserving of equal protection under the law. And that includes every human life in the world,” said Ricado Davis, president of Georgia Right to Life. The National Committee for the Right to Life severed ties with Georgia Right to Life in 2014 after opposing bills restricting abortion but allowing exceptions for rape and incest.

Yet the broad influence of personality is clear in the flurry of state bills that ban abortion once a ‘detectable human heartbeat’ is present, usually about six weeks. Such formulation was inspired in part by the idea that people can embrace cardiac activity as the time of life, even if a heart is not then fully developed.

DOES THIS MEAN ABORTIONS WILL LEAD TO PROSECUTION FOR MURDER?

Supporters of the laws say they only plan to prosecute abortion providers who provide illegal procedures. For example, Georgia has a criminal law that makes illegal abortions punishable by up to 10 years in prison. But opponents fear that prosecutors will bring murder charges against providers and women who have abortions, that women are in criminal danger if they miscarry, and that people who help someone get out-of-state abortions may also be prosecuted.

“If you are a person and you were aborted as a fetus, they would define that as murder. Or they could potentially define it as murder,” said Jolynn Dellinger, associate professor at Duke University Law School.

The personality standard already influences laws that allow people to be prosecuted for the death of a fetus and its mother if they kill a pregnant woman. At least 25 states already classify drug use during pregnancy as child abuse or neglect, according to a 2019 study by Dr. Laura Faherty, a researcher and professor of pediatrics at Boston University. National Advocates for Pregnant Women, which supports abortion rights, found 1,331 women were arrested or detained for crimes related to their pregnancy from 2006 to 2020.

“The fetal personality becomes, I think, an issue of controlling women and pregnant women and not trusting them or allowing them to make decisions about their bodies and their fetuses,” said Rebecca Kluchin, a professor at the California State University, Sacramento, which studies the history of abortion.

WHAT ARE SOME OTHER POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES ON THE PERSON?

A Texas woman has drawn attention following the Supreme Court’s ruling by saying she can drive in a high occupancy vehicle lane that requires two people in a vehicle because she was 34 weeks pregnant.

Proponents of abortion rights have repeatedly expressed concern that personality laws will undermine in vitro fertilization by giving rights to embryos that are created and then frozen. Georgian law circumvents this issue by giving rights only to embryos in the womb. But if multiple embryos are implanted, Georgia law could force a woman to bear multiple children at birth, experts warn. Alabama’s amendment does not specify how its personality standard affects matters other than abortion, and in vitro fertilization was unaffected, abortion rights supporters say.

Georgian law states that a woman can claim alimony during pregnancy, up to the amount of her medical and other pregnancy-related expenses. It also allows him to declare an unborn child as a state income tax dependent, although the state has not yet specified how this will work. The law also stipulates that unborn children must be counted in the state’s population when the state government makes decisions based on the number of residents, although the federal government does the census.

Associated Press writers Kim Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama, and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed.

Find AP’s full coverage of the overthrow of Roe v. Wade on: https://apnews.com/hub/abortion