Brief of John Finnis and Robert George in the Dobbs Case
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Prof. John Finnis of Oxford University and the University of Notre Dame and I today filed an amicus curiae brief in the Dobbs case presenting historical evidence to the Supreme Court that unborn children were understood to be persons by the framers and ratifiers of the 14th Amendment.
If we are correct–and I invite everyone to examine and assess our evidence–then the 14th Amendment’s guarantees of due process and equal protection apply to human beings, as persons, at all developmental stages–pre-natal as well as post-natal–and in all conditions.
(Note: In fn. 46, “the felt-movement criterion” should instead read “it,” meaning “the Bracton six weeks criterion” (as the cited material confirms). This all shows that as early as the 1820s there were treatises teaching that law must recognize and protect a new human life from conception.)