This article sets out the uniquely American argument that laws restricting abortion are in breach of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees the freedom of religion.
Constitutional argument
Constitutional argument
The First Amendment to the US Constitution ©NB: This argument only applies to the USA.
Peter S. Wenz has argued that laws restricting abortion are in breach of the provision of the First Amendment to the US Constitution regarding religion.
This states
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
US Bill of Rights
Wenz argues that
...believing a human foetus to be a human person before it has completed twenty weeks of gestation is … a religious belief.
So laws restricting abortions during the first twenty weeks of pregnancy are unconstitutional violations of the First Amendment religion guarantees, unless they can be justified on grounds other than those which presuppose that foetuses are human persons during the first twenty weeks of gestation.
Peter S Wenz
Wenz bases the argument that belief in the human personhood of an early foetus is a religious belief on decisions of US courts that religious beliefs are those that cannot be justified with arguments employing secular premises alone.
Wenz's argument is less persuasive than it appears, since many people would argue that a perfectly good case for the personhood of the foetus can be made on secular grounds, and that a case against abortion can be made without needing to demonstrate the personhood of the foetus.
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