Fetal rights (alternatively prenatal rights[1]) are the moral rights or legal rights of the human fetus under natural and civil law. The term fetal rights came into wide usage after Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark case that legalized abortion in the United States and was essentially overturned in 2022.[2][3] The concept of fetal rights has evolved to include the issues of maternal substance use disorders, including alcohol use disorder and opioid use disorder.[4] Most international human rights charters "clearly reject claims that human rights should attach from conception or any time before birth."[5] While most international human rights instruments lack a universal inclusion of the fetus as a person for the purposes of human rights, the fetus is granted various rights in the constitutions and civil codes of some countries.[6]
In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the foundation of human rights, the text and negotiating history of the "right to life" explicitly premises human rights on birth. Likewise, other international and regional human rights treaties, as drafted and/or subsequently interpreted, clearly reject claims that human rights should attach from conception or any time before birth. They also recognise that women's right to life and other human rights are at stake where restrictive abortion laws are in place.