The Fetal Personhood Bill Just Introduced in Congress, Explained

Shortly after Donald Trump took office on January 20, several extreme anti-abortion bills were filed in the House of Representatives, including a fetal personhood bill.

Filed by some of the most hardline anti-abortion representatives in Congress, one bill—HR 722—stood out as particularly drastic. HR 722 seeks to codify into law what is colloquially known as fetal personhood. This is the idea that a human being exists from the moment of conception, granting the fetus the same legal rights as a person.

While many people flagged the bills—especially HR 722—as extremely concerning, experts believe it’s not time for pro-choice advocates to panic just yet.

“There is no way [these bills] can pass the Senate, and maybe no way they can pass the House,” Robert M. Shrum, a political strategist and the director of the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California, tells Glamour.

Sonia Suter, a professor at George Washington University Law School, agrees. “I think there’s no question that there are those who want to push a personhood bill, but I don’t think they’re going to have the votes for that,” she says.

Glamour consulted with Shrum and Suter about what these bills mean, what the authors are trying to do, and what we should be paying attention to as the Trump administration moves forward.

What does the bill say?The most prominent of these bills, HR 722, filed by Representative Eric Burlison of Missouri, a Republican, would “implement equal protection under the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution for the right to life of each born and preborn human person,” a.k.a. fetal personhood. There were 69 cosponsors on the bill, all of them Republican.

Wait, what is fetal personhood?It’s an extreme anti-abortion concept that gives all the legal rights to an embryo as any other human being. Basically, as soon as sperm meets egg and becomes an embryo, the resulting fetus is a child, with the same protections.

The problems with this sort of dogma are obvious, as it essentially means that the fetus is a separate, legally protected entity inside of the pregnant person. As the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice puts it, “fetal personhood directly challenges the rights of women and anyone capable of pregnancy and creates a direct conflict between pregnant people’s rights and those of so-called ‘unborn children.’”

It also introduces a host of other legal issues. Remember how Alabama shut down IVF procedures temporarily last year because of a court ruling that said embryos are “extrauterine children”? (After a national outcry, a bill to protect IVF in the state was subsequently passed.) A fetal-personhood bill would similarly put these sorts of procedures in jeopardy.

What are the other bills introduced?While many people are specifically outraged about HB 722, it’s only one of several anti-abortion legislation introduced in the past few weeks.

These include: HR 629, which would ban medication abortion (19 cosponsors); HR 795, which would prevent pregnancy from being “treated as an illness” (8 cosponsors); and HR 682, which would ban abortion after a fetal “heartbeat” is detected (37 cosponsors).

Will these bills get traction?Experts say it’s highly unlikely, essentially because lawmakers know how unpopular they would be. A majority of Americans, 63%, support legal abortion, and even in red states, legislation to codify abortion rights have overwhelmingly passed since the fall of Roe.

Suter notes that a fetal-personhood measure would likely be extremely unpopular, especially with the question of how it would impact IVF.

“I think that there’s enough awareness among the public generally, and in Congress in particular, about what happens when you say that embryos and fetuses are persons and what that might mean for in vitro fertilization,” she says. “There are some groups that don’t approve of IVF, but most people today believe that IVF, at least in some form, should be available to people. And so the implications would just be too broad.”

Shrum notes that if the bills made it to a vote, it’s likely some Republican lawmakers wouldn’t support them, in case it could impact them in the midterm elections in 2026.

“Trump partly won because he managed to say, ‘Don”t worry about the abortion issue. I just want to leave it to the states,’” he says. “And suddenly all these people are introducing very restrictive bills, which the electorate overwhelmingly would reject.”

Speaking of Trump, how does he play into all this?During the campaign, Trump did say he felt the issue of abortion legality should be determined by the states. And while Trump has taken anti-abortion actions since becoming president, Shrum believes it’s unlikely that either he or House Speaker Mike Johnson have the stomach for a protracted fight over these bills, as he believes the president knows they are “very unpopular.”

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t remain vigilant and concerned about the future of reproductive health, says Suter, but abortion doesn’t seem to be the president’s “primary focus” of his term.

“I think he recognized the pushback with Dobbs and made a real effort on the campaign trail to have it both ways, to try to appease people who were really worried about how far he was going to go,” she says. “And I just don’t believe that he has sort of an ideological commitment to the pro-life position.”

However, Suter added, “That doesn’t mean that things aren’t going to happen in his administration that impact reproductive rights.”

How would these bills make it to a vote?They would need to first make it through the committee they have been referred to (HR 722, for instance, has been sent to the Judiciary Committee). In the committee, lawmakers will have the opportunity to discuss the bill, change it, and eventually vote on it (you can read more about that here; thanks to Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton for the explainer). The committee could also choose not to act on it at all, effectively killing it.

In order for any of these bills to make it to the floor, though, they must be placed on the calendar by Speaker Johnson, who is unlikely to do so based on the evidence presented above.

If they won’t pass, and possibly won’t even make it to a House floor vote, why are they even being introduced?It’s pretty simple. “They’re driven by pure ideology, which is out of step with public opinion,” says Shrum.

And, Suter adds, many of the bills’ sponsors are from deep-red districts that also support these kinds of extremes.

“They were voted into Congress by an electorate that supported these views,” she says. “I think they’re trying to say, ‘We’re fighting for the unborn life. We’re fighting to protect women by trying to prohibit chemical abortions.’ Or ‘We’re fighting to protect life by trying to put forth a bill’…a lot of this is more messaging than anything. I think they know they’re not getting the votes, but they want to tell their constituency that they have this commitment and they’re fighting for their cause.”

As the fight for abortion rights continues, what should we keep an eye out for?Both experts noticed that the fight to deregulate or outlaw the so-called abortion pills, mifepristone and misoprostol, is one that is ramping up under the Trump administration. Outlawing or yanking FDA approval for these pills would be a huge blow to abortion rights nationwide, as the majority of abortions nationwide are medical rather than surgical.

The drugs are also vital in ensuring women in states that have banned abortion can still access care (just last week, a New York doctor was criminally charged for sending the pills to a minor in Louisiana). The Justice Department has said the Comstock Act, which says that you can’t send “obscene” materials through the US Post Office, does not apply when referring to abortion pills, a point on which anti-abortion advocates disagree.

“If you can’t get fetal personhood, which they understand is a hard one to win, then you can start to really interpret the Comstock Act more broadly,” Suter says. “You can say, ‘Well…it’s about anything that you mail to achieve abortions.’”

It’s possible, says Shrum, that the Trump administration could try to “satisfy its right-wing constituency” by going after the pills.

“That will set off a firestorm of unbelievable proportions,” he says. “I mean, a very high percentage of abortions in this country are medical abortions not done surgically.”

Any advice on how to keep fighting for reproductive rights?Suter says we must keep focused.

“Support groups, vote, educate people, talk to everybody about it,” she says. “I think grassroots efforts are important. We are here today because the anti-choice movement played the long game; they were willing to fight a continued battle. We can do the same thing when we have to stick with it…people need to stay engaged and vigilant and talk to each other.”