IV 

118TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION H. RES. 464 

Acknowledging that unborn children are legal and constitutional persons who 

are entitled to the equal protection of the laws. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

JUNE 5, 2023 

Mr. LAMBORN (for himself, Mrs. LESKO, Mr. ADERHOLT, Mr. BANKS, Mr. 

BERGMAN, Mrs. BOEBERT, Mr. BRECHEEN, Mr. DUNCAN, Mr. EZELL, 

Mr. FULCHER, Mr. GOSAR, Mr. HARRIS, Mr. JACKSON of Texas, Mr. 

KELLY of Pennsylvania, Mr. LAMALFA, Mr. MANN, Mr. MOOLENAAR, 

Mr. ROSENDALE, Mr. WALBERG, Mr. WEBER of Texas, and Mr. WILSON

of South Carolina) submitted the following resolution; which was referred 

to the Committee on the Judiciary 

RESOLUTION 

Acknowledging that unborn children are legal and constitutional persons who are entitled to the equal protection 

of the laws. 

Whereas the Declaration of Independence declares it to be a 

self-evident truth that ‘‘all men are created equal, that 

they are endowed by their Creator with certain 

unalienable Rights,’’ beginning with the right to life, and 

that the primary purpose of all government is to defend 

that supreme right; 

Whereas among the stated purposes of the Constitution is to 

‘‘secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our 

Posterity’’; 


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•HRES 464 IH 

Whereas the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution 

guarantees ‘‘due process of law’’ and ‘‘the equal protection of the laws’’ to ‘‘any person’’; 

Whereas the Fourteenth Amendment situated its equal protection guarantee within a common-law and statutory 

context that prohibited abortion and treated the unborn 

human being throughout pregnancy as a ‘‘person’’, who 

under ‘‘common and civil law’’ was ‘‘to all intents and 

purposes a child, as much as if born’’ (Hall v. Hancock, 

32 Mass. (15 Pick.) 255, 257–58 (1834) (Shaw, C.J.)); 

Whereas the Fourteenth Amendment, like the Civil Rights 

Act of 1866 that it was meant to sustain, relied on an 

understanding of the fundamental rights of persons, including the rights to life and personal security, that had 

been expounded in Blackstone’s Commentaries, which 

began its first book (‘‘Of the Rights of Persons’’) with 

a discussion of the unborn child’s rights as a ‘‘person’’ 

across many bodies of law; 

Whereas by the time the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, a supermajority of States had codified laws to prohibit abortion at all stages, and many of these statutes 

classified abortion as an ‘‘offense against the person’’ 

and nearly all described the unborn victim of abortion as 

an ‘‘infant’’ or ‘‘child’’; 

Whereas the primary Framer of the Fourteenth Amendment, 

Representative John Bingham, explained that the 

Amendment was written to ensure that ‘‘no State in the 

Union should deny to any human being . . . the equal 

protection of the laws’’; 

Whereas Senator Jacob Howard, who sponsored the Amendment in the Senate, declared that the Amendment’s purVerDate Sep 11 2014 01:22 Jun 06, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR464.IH HR464

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•HRES 464 IH 

pose was to ‘‘disable a State from depriving not merely 

a citizen of the United States, but any person, whoever 

he may be, of life, liberty and property without due process’’ and to ensure that even the lowest and ‘‘most despised of the [human] race were guaranteed equal protection’’; 

Whereas Representative Thaddeus Stevens called the Amendment ‘‘a superstructure of perfect equality of every 

human being before the law; of impartial protection to everyone in whose breast God had placed an immortal 

soul’’; 

Whereas the drafters and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment expected the Amendment to apply not only to freedmen and Black Americans, but to every member of the 

human species within the jurisdictional reach of the Constitution, they intentionally selected the expansive language of ‘‘any person’’, to ensure that no State would 

ever again subject any class of persons to inferior and invidiously discriminatory treatment; 

Whereas a medical and scientific consensus exists establishing 

that each human being begins his or her life cycle at fertilization; 

Whereas abortion, the use or prescription of any instrument, 

medicine, drug, or any other substance or device, to intentionally kill the unborn child of a woman known to be 

pregnant, is destructive to the life, health, personal security, and well-being of the unborn child; 

Whereas unborn children have morally and legally protectable 

interests in life, health, personal security, and well-being; 

Whereas at least 38 States and this Federal Government 

(section 1841 of title 18, United States Code) have fetal 


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homicide laws that provide for prosecution of criminals 

who kill an unborn child during the commission of a 

crime; 

Whereas in recognition of the unborn child’s right to life, the 

common law, State law, and Federal law (18 U.S.C. section 3596(b)), all prohibit imposition of the death penalty 

on a pregnant woman who has been convicted of a capital 

crime; 

Whereas State laws and Federal judicial decisions allowing 

abortion in the United States denied constitutional rights 

to unborn children, causing the tragic and unspeakable 

loss of more than sixty million children before birth, increasing the pressure and anguish of countless women 

and girls who are driven to abortion, and cheapening our 

respect for the human person and the sanctity of human 

life; 

Whereas nothing in the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs 

v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization prevents Congress from recognizing the legal and constitutional 

personhood of unborn children, and indeed, central to the 

Dobbs holding was the fact that abortion terminates the 

life of an unborn human being; and 

Whereas President Ronald Reagan declared in his 1988 Proclamation of a National Sanctity of Human Life Day that 

‘‘our nation cannot continue down the path of abortion, 

so radically at odds with our history, our heritage, and 

our concepts of justice,’’ and that ‘‘the well-being and the 

future of our country, demand that protection of the innocents must be guaranteed and that the personhood of 

the unborn be declared and defended throughout our 

land’’: Now, therefore, be it 


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1 Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 

2 (1) defines the term ‘‘unborn person’’ or ‘‘un3 born child’’, as used in this Resolution, to mean ‘‘the 

4 unborn offspring of human beings of the species 

5 Homo sapiens from the beginning of the biological 

6 development of that human being, from fertilization, 

7 throughout pregnancy until live birth, including the 

8 human conceptus, zygote, morula, blastocyst, em9 bryo, and fetus’’; 

10 (2) finds and declares based on sound histor11 ical, medical, and scientific evidence that— 

12 (A) the life of each human person begins 

13 at fertilization (or the functional equivalent 

14 thereof); 

15 (B) human persons at every stage of devel16 opment before birth have moral and legally 

17 protectable interests in life, health, and well18 being; 

19 (C) the word ‘‘person’’, as used in the 

20 Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, 

21 had a settled public meaning that included any 

22 child living in the womb, and the drafters and 

23 ratifiers of the Amendment intended to include 

24 all human beings (including unborn children) 


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1 within the scope of the Amendment’s protective 

2 embrace; 

3 (D) permissive State abortion laws deprive 

4 an unborn human person of the right to life 

5 and the enjoyment of the equal protection of 

6 the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amend7 ment; and 

8 (E) the intentional destruction of human 

9 life prior to birth through abortion is inimical 

10 to our national values, history, and sense of jus11 tice; 

12 (3) acknowledges our constitutional duty and 

13 solemn obligation to guarantee the equal protection 

14 of the laws to every unborn child within the jurisdic15 tional and geographic reach of the Constitution, 

16 which shall not be construed to permit the prosecu17 tion of any woman for the death of her unborn child; 

18 and 

19 (4) calls upon the Congress to enact congruent 

20 and proportional legislation to enforce the Four21 teenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection 

22 for unborn children nationwide, and upon the Su23 preme Court to acknowledge and vindicate the right 

24 of unborn children to the enjoyment of the equal 


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1 protection of the laws in every State and Federal 

2 territory. 

Æ 


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