US supreme court declines to take up fetal personhood case

The US supreme court on Tuesday refused to rule on whether fetuses are people and therefore have constitutional rights, dealing a blow to two women and a Catholic church that filed a lawsuit against the state of Rhode Island.

Since then, however, with the fall of Roe, Republican-run states across the US have passed abortion bans of varying strictness.

In September, a petition requested the supreme court of Rhode Island approve a writ of certiorari, which would pave the way for petitioning the decision of the lower case concerning fetal personhood.

But on Tuesday, the court decided not to take the case. It did so without offering comments.