content: As a matter of fact someone doen't need to believe in a "soul" to believe someone is a "person" and not an animal or a thing. A person is just someone the law recognize as having a bare minimum of rights, such as the right of not being harmed for no reason. We already confer similar rights to our pets and sooner or later we might consider persons even chimpazees, soul or not soul. Should a fetus have rights as a person? I believe there's no solid answer because the whole concept of "person" is foggy, exactly like "soul". Occam's razor might help here: should a fetus have a right to be born, which includes the right of a State to force pregnant women to give birth against their will? That's the one and only question.