Should the Law Protect the Dignity of the Human Body?

 

 This guest post is from Regent Law 3L Braden P. Murphy:

On March 20, 2025, Selena Chandler-Scott was arrested in Georgia. She was charged with concealing the death of her child, and with throwing away its body in a dumpster. Had the child been ten years old, there would be no controversy. However, the child in question was a 19-week-old fetus. The charges were dropped because a medical examiner determined that Selena had naturally miscarried.

This situation raises an important question about the enforcement of abortion laws and the rights of humans at different stages of development: at what point does the law protect the dignity of the human body when it comes to the treatment of human remains?

Ideally, law would protect every human body according to its inherent dignity after conception. However, this is not always feasible. For example, a fertilized egg can fail to implant. In such circumstances, no civilization has ever required that women disclose the baby’s death or properly dispose of the remains of a human zygote because of the obvious practical obstacles. However, to protect human life and dignity, the law must at some point prohibit the concealment and improper disposal of human remains. Otherwise, no law penalizing a person for abortion would be enforceable.

The answer to the question, practically speaking, is that the law should protect the dignity of the human body when it reaches a form such that its disposal cannot be attributed to mere negligence.  In unfortunate cases like that of Selena Chandler-Scott, individuals should be prosecuted for the intentional improper disposal of human remains because a 19-week-old fetus has attained a form that cannot be negligently tossed in a dumpster.  As a matter of policy, this is not to penalize grieving mothers or mothers who did not know that they were in possession of a human body. Rather, this is to protect the dignity of the human body and to ensure that in cases when a mother intentionally murders her child, authorities are not impeded from carrying out investigations.

 

(image of 19-week old baby, taken from What to Expect, https://www.whattoexpect.com/pregnancy/week-by-week/week-19.aspx)