This memorandum addresses the legal question of when natural personhood begins. It necessarily encompasses the questions of what constitutes personhood, and whether personhood begins at conception, at birth, or at some other time. If it’s given that humans have inherent and natural rights, then answers to this cluster of questions are crucial and foundational to any and all actions in human law. Because human governments operate through human laws, the answers to this cluster of questions are crucial and foundational to the question of how human governments should be structured. — This memorandum critiques Roe v Wade, based simultaneously on the supreme Court’s failure to ground its arguments in the mother’s possession of her body as her private property, and on the court’s failure to recognize the inherent personhood of the newly conceived fetus.

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