Is a Dead Fetus a Human Body?

There was an interesting story in the Washington Post on Saturday about an abortion protestor who was charged with a misdemeanor for holding a jar that contained the body of dead fetus at a protest outside a Planned Parenthood clinic almost a year.

Jeff White was acquitted from the century-old crime of displaying dead body or a part of a dead body.

But even if he interpreted the law as covering an act such as White's, Doyle said, he could not find that White's brief grasp of the jar would qualify as "keeping" the body for the purpose of displaying it. And that, he noted, would assume that the fetus was in fact a human body.

It was a question that hung over the case until it was raised yesterday, first by the defense attorney and then by the judge. In the end, however, Doyle decided he did not need to address the broader legal issue.

I wonder if Planned Parenthood wanted White to be convicted. Would they want the court to rule that a fetus is dead human body?