Fetal personhood and how to get away with murder

 Reductio ad absurdum 

Reading this article... 

Does a fetus count in the carpool lane? Abortion laws create new questions about legal personhood

... it occurred to me that taken to the extreme if a pregnant woman murders someone and is apprehended the prosecutors have some serious considerations in moving forward. In fact, they may have to let her stay home, perhaps under house arrest, until she gives birth. There are even problems with that which I address below.

On the very most basic level if the fetus is a legally consider to be a person from the moment of conception or on any legally defined post-conception time it cannot be incarcerated.

The woman of course could, and would, even prior to trial if the charge was murder, if she wasn't carrying the fetus inside of her. This would be no different from jailing a single-parent mother along with her toddler because nobody else had custody. The state would take custody of the child and determine where he or she went.

If a collection of cells inside of a woman's uterus is a person, whether an embryo in the earliest post-fertilization stage of development or at anytime later in pregnancy, is a person that just happens not to have been born yet forget the question about the legality of a woman driving in a carpool lane. 

There's no case that can be made that it is legal, let alone constitutional, to deprive that pre-born person of its freedom by incarcerating them. 

Taking this logic to an extreme, even an arrest is a deprivation of freedom so it would be unconstitutional to arrest a woman who was carrying an unborn person. If a police officer did this it would be a false arrest and I could see lawsuits as a result. It would could make an even more compelling case if the unborn person was locked in the back of a police car or even worse taken to a holding cell in a police station.

Again consider what would happen to a woman suspected of a crime who was arrested while she was with her actually born, living, breathing, thinking, and feeling child. I think in most jurisdictions that child would go with a relative or social services would take temporary custody if the woman was to be deprived of her freedom.

Consider the question about ankle bracelet monitored house arrest to prevent a woman from fleeing to avoid prosecution and whether it would be an infringement of the constitutional right of the unborn child. Who speaks for the fetus who can't talk? Whose to say that the fetus doesn't want to take a walk, or for that matter, go to a country which we don't have an extradition treaty with.

Of course once the child is born unless the woman managed to get pregnant soon after giving birth  she could be arrested, go to trail, and if convicted go to prison.