But, even if abortion is excluded, recognising a fetus as having legal rights that otherwise only apply after birth remains problematic. We only need to look at the recent experiences of women in the US to understand why.

In the southern state of Alabama, fetal personhood arguments have been used to lock up pregnant women and take away their babies. Alabama’s “Chemical Endangerment Law” was designed to prosecute parents with meth labs in their back sheds for exposing their kids to harmful fumes and risks of explosion. However, Alabama’s highest court held that this law could be used to prosecute women for using controlled substances while pregnant, something that legislators never intended.

The law refers to endangering a “child”. The court, pointing to other US laws that give a fetus legal rights, said the meaning of the word “child” included a fetus, from the moment of conception. Despite the law never having been intended for this purpose, it has been used to prosecute pregnant women for things as innocuous as taking anxiety controlling medications, or sleep aids. Following almost a decade of prosecutions, Alabama has just passed a new fetal personhood law. The new law requires the state to recognise and support the rights of unborn children. Advocates are concerned it may be used to ban the morning-after-pill.

fetal personhood laws have also been used to criminalise poor pregnancy outcomes. A woman from Iowa, in the Midwest, was prosecuted after she fell down a flight of stairs and miscarried. Iowa has a “feticide” law, which criminalises abortions after the second trimester. The woman was charged after doctors formed the view she threw herself down the stairs on purpose. Another woman from Indiana was charged with attempted feticide when she tried to commit suicide and miscarried. These “feticide” laws effectively equate late-term miscarriages with “homicide” – that is, murder.

These draconian laws disproportionately affect poorer communities, women struggling with addiction, and women of colour. Promoting the idea of the fetus as a fully developed child has long been a centrepiece of anti-choice rhetoric in the US designed to chip away at women’s constitutionally protected right to reproductive choice. They are even more dangerous in NSW, where there is no such right and abortion remains a crime.