human physical life begins when a human ovum is fertilized by a human sperm
If this case goes to SCOTUS (appeal of blocking Planned Parenthood funding), it might be grounds to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Or is this wishful thinking?
It gets better than that.
It would not just overturn Roe, it would END ABORTION (e.g. none of this let the states decide BS).
The majority opinion in Roe itself acknowledges that once personhood for the unborn is established that the unborn would automatically enjoy 14th Amendment rights.
Well, in a way. SCOTUS can always define a class of homicide that is both exempt from prosecution and available only to women. In order to avoid being so obviously full of chit, though, they'll rule that every pregnancy should end in abortion unless both the father and the mother want the child to be born. /sarc
Look how they act on the Wisconsin Supreme Court ~ willing to kill another member of the court and then get together and lie about it.
It'd be the same at the USSC ~ probably have Ginsburg wear a suicide vest to work some day and BANG ~ all of 'em gone and Obama free to appoint 9 Commies.
Given the current composition of the court, probably.
Roe v Wade was decided based on the limited knowledge and technology at the time. Today we have such advanced tech that the development of the baby can be seen within weeks of conception. That will be hard to dispute.
However Justice Ginsburg who has in the past expressed objections to the way Roe v Wade was decided will find a penumbra within a penumbra of the Constitution to allow abortion.
There are two aspects to the issue, and they've been blended together for so long that this ruling is like a breath of fresh air in a stuffy room. There is the beginning of the physical human body, and then there is the entry of the soul into the body.
Atheists and agnostics and communists and Leftists are stuck with the first aspect alone - the beginning of the physical body alone. Ironically, these shiftless lying bastards and bitches have invoked spiritual arguments to avoid the obvious, which the judge just nailed: the physical human body begins at conception, by definitions, because nothing but innate growth takes place after that, not any addiction of new biological material. So at the physical level, that's that - legally. And if that's all you recognize for abortion, then conception is it.
Spiritually, however, there's the discussion of the soul, and when it enters the physical body. Obviously, many believe the soul enters at conception. But there are ancient teachings from many different religions that this isn't so - that the body has to develop to a certain level of sophistication before it provides a suitable environment for the soul.
As for abortion, in a spiritual sense, the discussion becomes a definition of terms at the most fundamental level - the destruction of the human body without the soul, versus the destruction of the human body containing a soul (and I'm not even getting into the demonic atrocity of killing a late-term baby, or one being born).
Obviously, if the soul enters after conception, at some point in the development of the fetus, the human body before it enters is hardly "neutral" since it is being prepared FOR a soul. So killing it would NOT be "neutral," either.
But killing a fetus WITH a soul, by any definition, is killing a full-fledged human being. And human civilizations can only allow such killing under extremely limited circumstances, lest they condone murder and, eventually, destroy themselves.
Federal Judge has upheld that:
Human Physical Life begins when a human ovum is fertilized by a human sperm
Since this judge has ruled this to be true AND is allowing the Planned Parenthood funding, it is possible this could be appealed to the US Supreme Court.
That could set the stage for the US Supreme Court ruling Life Begins at Conception and that the 14th Amendment applies. Game, set, and match.
Roe v. Wade would go the way of the infamous Dred Scott decision...