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 constitu-
tional 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 protec-
tion of the laws’’ to ‘‘any person’’; 
Whereas the Fourteenth Amendment situated its equal pro-
tection 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, in-
cluding 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 adopt-
ed, a supermajority of States had codified laws to pro-
hibit 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 Amend-
ment in the Senate, declared that the Amendment’s pur-
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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 proc-
ess’’ and to ensure that even the lowest and ‘‘most de-
spised of the [human] race were guaranteed equal protec-
tion’’; 
Whereas Representative Thaddeus Stevens called the Amend-
ment ‘‘a superstructure of perfect equality of every 
human being before the law; of impartial protection to ev-
eryone in whose breast God had placed an immortal 
soul’’; 
Whereas the drafters and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amend-
ment expected the Amendment to apply not only to freed-
men and Black Americans, but to every member of the 
human species within the jurisdictional reach of the Con-
stitution, they intentionally selected the expansive lan-
guage of ‘‘any person’’, to ensure that no State would 
ever again subject any class of persons to inferior and in-
vidiously discriminatory treatment; 
Whereas a medical and scientific consensus exists establishing 
that each human being begins his or her life cycle at fer-
tilization; 
Whereas abortion, the use or prescription of any instrument, 
medicine, drug, or any other substance or device, to in-
tentionally kill the unborn child of a woman known to be 
pregnant, is destructive to the life, health, personal secu-
rity, 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. sec-
tion 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, in-
creasing 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 Con-
gress 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 Proc-
lamation 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 in-
nocents 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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Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) defines the term ‘‘unborn person’’ or ‘‘un-
born child’’, as used in this Resolution, to mean ‘‘the 
unborn offspring of human beings of the species 
Homo sapiens from the beginning of the biological 
development of that human being, from fertilization, 
throughout pregnancy until live birth, including the 
human conceptus, zygote, morula, blastocyst, em-
bryo, and fetus’’; 
(2) finds and declares based on sound histor-
ical, medical, and scientific evidence that— 
(A) the life of each human person begins 
at fertilization (or the functional equivalent 
thereof); 
(B) human persons at every stage of devel-
opment before birth have moral and legally 
protectable interests in life, health, and well- 
being; 
(C) the word ‘‘person’’, as used in the 
Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, 
had a settled public meaning that included any 
child living in the womb, and the drafters and 
ratifiers of the Amendment intended to include 
all human beings (including unborn children) 
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within the scope of the Amendment’s protective 
embrace; 
(D) permissive State abortion laws deprive 
an unborn human person of the right to life 
and the enjoyment of the equal protection of 
the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amend-
ment; and 
(E) the intentional destruction of human 
life prior to birth through abortion is inimical 
to our national values, history, and sense of jus-
tice; 
(3) acknowledges our constitutional duty and 
solemn obligation to guarantee the equal protection 
of the laws to every unborn child within the jurisdic-
tional and geographic reach of the Constitution, 
which shall not be construed to permit the prosecu-
tion of any woman for the death of her unborn child; 
and 
(4) calls upon the Congress to enact congruent 
and proportional legislation to enforce the Four-
teenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection 
for unborn children nationwide, and upon the Su-
preme Court to acknowledge and vindicate the right 
of unborn children to the enjoyment of the equal 
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protection of the laws in every State and Federal 
territory. 
Æ 
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