A Slip of the Tongue in the Supreme Court

Written by Terence P. Jeffrey

When lawyer Sarah Weddington stood up in the U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 11, 1972, to present the pro-abortion argument in the case of Roe v. Wade, she was legalistically careful in the language she used to describe whom exactly an abortion aborted.

She avoided normal human terms like “unborn child” or “baby” — and, most importantly, “person.” She preferred “fetus.”

Presumably, this was because the Fourteenth Amendment states,

“nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”