"QUESTION: Could Texas constitutionally, in your view, declare that, by statute, that the fetus is a person for all constitutional purposes after the third month of gestation? MRS. WEDDINGTON: I do not believe that the State Legislature can determine the meaning of the federal Constitution. It is up to this Court to make that determination. QUESTION: The States have to deal with statutes, don’t they? MRS. WEDDINGTON: The State could obviously adopt that kind of statute, and then the question would have to be adjudicated as to whether for all purposes that statute is constitutional. We are not alleging that there cannot be some kind of protection. For example, the property rights, which, again, are contingent upon being born alive. It can be retroactive to the period prior to birth. But in this particular situation we are alleging that this statute is unconstitutional. QUESTION: But that has been recognized in the period before birth for purposes of injury claims, and you put that, I take it, in the property category? MRS. WEDDINGTON: In Texas it is only when they are born alive. And the fact that there is a – you know, the wrongful conduct of another is not the same as in this situation. As for property rights, for example, there are even property rights that relate back to prior to conception; children that are not yet conceived, who later inherit. But that did not prevent this Court in Griswold from holding people had the right to birth control."