Because by definition it is homicide and we as a society should have a say over it. As you are always crying over muh democracy, I find it interesting how demonstrably fake those cries are in light of you wanting to exclude the legislators (the most democratic branch in the entire government) from enacting the will of the people.
The problem is there is no legal statute that identifies an unborn fetus as a person with all the inherent rights. So in the eyes of the law, it is not homicide.
ALM's Law.com online Real Life Dictionary of the Law. The easiest-to-read, most user-friendly guide to legal terms. Use it free!
dictionary.law.com
homicide
n. the killing of a human being due to the act or omission of another. Included among homicides are murder and manslaughter, but not all homicides are a crime, particularly when there is a lack of criminal intent.
Definitely no criminal intent in abortion. And a fetus does not have legal personhood.
From the 14th amendment, the protections apply to those BORN in the United States. Nothing mentioned of unborn. That is the huge debate now that Roe has been overturned, and assigning a fetus "personhood" opens a whole other can of worms, like now they should be able to be included on someone's taxes. They should be able to get a social security number.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
Individual states are setting their own personhood laws, but that is a sticky wicket. They are mostly being challenged in court as well.
So no, abortion is not clearly an act of homicide, legally speaking.
Now whether it is killing a human being, that is another story and debate altogether, with opinions that run the gamut from conception = human being all the way to late-term-abortions = not a human being to fetus = parasite. With no scientific consensus on when life becomes human, we are left to the fickle bog of public opinion.
