Beyond Dred Scott: Personhood and Constitutional Protection

Love the show? Text us your feedback! If equal protection were applied to the unborn, what would enforcement actually look like in American law? The 14th Amendment promises equal protection, but who counts as a “person” when the law is applied to the unborn? This week we sit down with Princeton’s Professor Robert P George, a leading scholar of jurisprudence and constitutional interpretation, alongside Professor John Londregan, to make a careful case that the Constitution’s guarantees should extend to children in the womb, not only to those already born.The core dispute at the heart of the abortion debate is personhood. We talk through the biological reality of human development, the original public meaning of “person” in 1868, and why Section 5 matters for Congress’s authority when states fail to protect vulnerable lives. Also addressed is the claim that the 14th Amendment was about race rather than abortion. Then we get practical and argue for an approach focused on preventing death, avoiding vengeance, and preserving compassion for women in difficult circumstances, while also taking seriously the claim that abortion ends a human life.If you care about constitutional law, originalism, equal protection, personhood, and the real-world stakes of abortion policy, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share this episode with someone who thinks differently, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.Support the show