Our societies make a distinction between
natural rights and
constitutional rights.
Natural rights are inalienable and are inherent to every human being, and considered to be basic rights which include the rights to life, liberty and property; they can't be modified or trespassed by someone else's rights.
Constitutional rights are not the same, and usually meant to limit the power of the state against the citizen, dictating which specific rights you are allowed to have within your society. They can sometimes be conditional depending on your status as citizen of the nation. They are designed to dictate the relationship between state and citizen.
Non-citizens, young children or imprisoned criminals have limited
constitutional rights (according to the redacted constitution of the place): they usually can't vote (depends on country or state), they can't own weapons, they can't drive purchase alcoholic beverages, etc. Depends on the place and the constitution. However all them still have
natural rights.
Natural rights can be suspended on extreme situation of - usually when breaking the law, but they require a certain amount of directives and qualifications, and the person needs to be informed of the situation and has the right to defend itself from such actions (through the courts excerzising their defense). You can't just take someone's liberty or property from the get go, the person must be informed so he or she can defend itself and take proper legal action. For example,
Habeas Corpus is a legal recourse to protect yourself from such actions.
An embryo in a test tube does not have rights, because it is undeveloped, but
implanted embryo is the recipient of the same
natural rights as you and me because it is developing into a full human being, and jurisprudence of most nations regonizes as such. I gave you a few examples before, which I will develop further below to respond to your next quotation.
International covenant on civil and political rights (united nations) - Part III, Article 6.
5. Sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age and shall not be carried out on pregnant women.
International law, and the law of most countries where capital punishment is legal, it is forbidden to execute a woman while pregnant. Not that the issue arises often (if at all in history), but the legal principle is that a pregnant woman is carrying two lives, not just one, and you can't legally end the second life. Most nations have similar laws in their civil codes, such as the U.S.
18 US Code 3596,
(b) Pregnant Woman.— A sentence of death shall not be carried out upon a woman while she is pregnant.
Most laws ascribe to the principle that the fetus enjoys the right to life, and were crafted within that parameter. If the fetus does not enjoy such right, there is no need to be concerned with its safety, and penalties for injury or death would not apply. However, the law of most countries also recognizes that death in utero can be akin to murder or providing liability for injuries.
In the case of
Mone vs Greyhound, the court recognised the unwrongfull death of an unborn child as a "person" - by consideration that a viable fetus is defined as such - under a wrongful death status, and overruled a previous case (Leccese v. McDonough). A similar ruling occurs in
Commonwealth vs Cas, where a fetus was considered a person in the case of vehicular accident.
The legal predisposition of such rulings is that a viable fetus is by definition a person worthy of life, and compensation is akin to the same of a regular person, based on the idea that the viable fetus is developing into a regular human being, and his life can't be taken away, or in such cases, treated as the death of any other human being. Fetal rights are thus contingent on the idea that a viable fetus will eventually be born into a full human , and by extension are legally protected from injury or attack, and punishment for such actions is taken as if it was the same for any other person.
The contigency of birth extends these rights to property: a fetus can legally inherit if he is conceived or born after its predecessor or bequeaters death, assuming the fetus is viable and will eventually be born. But the law treats the fetus as if having been
alive at the time of conception.
For example, we find this conditions within state law in the U.S.
Louisiana Civil Code, Art. 940. Same; unborn child
An unborn child conceived at the death of the decedent and thereafter born alive shall be considered to exist at the death of the decedent.
Although a minor point, the terminology refers to the fetus as "unborn child", which in jurisprudence is of significance. However the key is that most laws and rulings treat fetuses as prospective children and humans. The ruling of
Christian vs Carter establishes that a will created before the conception of the child is invalid, because it goes against the interests of the progenitor, while providing the status of "living" to the fetus.
Now the law varies from country to country, but the legal principle of most nations is and has always been that a child in the utero is defined as the legal claimant for any sort of property owned by a pre-deceased father. There are legal void as in every legal system, but the law does work on the principle that the fetus is by all means a human being worthy of protection and entitled to certain rights.
I didn't say
Roe v Wade mentions the rights of the fetus. I said it did not deny them.
Roe v Wade is framed in a manner which is about the government's oversight over private medical procedure, and its protection under the constitution, but it does not express the idea that the fetus is not alive.
Legally speaking, in some countries, a child can sue for a tort claim against its own mother for prenatal injuries.
The supreme court reversed the previous ruling, and ruled in favour of the baker:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colorado_Civil_Rights_Commission
In a 7–2 decision, the Court ruled on narrow grounds that the Commission did not employ religious neutrality, violating Masterpiece owner Jack Phillips's rights to free exercise, and reversed the Commission's decision.
