Puerto Rico Senate Bill 504 made headlines as it passed into law in the closing days of 2025 — especially in social media and blog posts from right to life groups. The new law is being hailed as “one of the strongest pro-life positions in the United States” and “a legal acknowledgment in civil law that unborn life has personhood status.” It is also being recognized as a data point counter to the prevailing myth that Puerto Rico would be a left-wing, Democratic state.
What does the law say?
The main statement of Senate Bill 504 is that “the human being in gestation or the unborn child is a natural person, including the conceived child at any stage of gestation within the mother’s womb; that the inheritance rights that the law recognizes in favor of the unborn child are contingent upon birth; and that the rights recognized to the unborn child do not diminish the pregnant woman’s authority to make decisions regarding her pregnancy in accordance with the law.”
The first statement, that unborn babies are legal persons, is not unique in the United States. While the first law on the question in 1884 declared that a fetus is part of the mother and not a separate person, and later laws upheld this idea for more than a century, individual states began to make personhood laws about fetuses in 1986. Minnesota was the first state to do so, and now 29 states have this language in a law. Most of these laws focus on the question of whether an injury that ends the life of a fetus should be punished in the same way as an injury that ends the life of an infant. In the 21st century, a number of states have passed “life begins at conception” laws that are not limited to the question of injury to a fetus.
The second statement makes it clear that, even if personhood begins at conception, a child must be born before becoming eligible to inherit an estate. In a case in which property was intended to pass to a child but not the mother, that child could not inherit before birth and the mother could not inherit on the child’s behalf.
The third statement says that a woman’s right to make decisions about her pregnancy will not be limited by the personhood of the child she carries. The law further explains, “this recognition does not prevent other articles of the Civil Code or even other subsequent laws from specifying or limiting said rights.”
Does the law show a conservative mindset?
The section explaining the reasoning behind the law says, “Globally, there has been a growing awareness of the urgent need to protect unborn children with appropriate social measures that guarantee their full human development. The health of the unborn child as a patient distinct from the health of the mother, the promotion of adequate economic conditions for their intrauterine development, and the protection of their lives along with those of their mothers who wish to carry their pregnancies to term are among the initiatives that the international community has undertaken in recent decades.”
The law goes on to say, “This legislation aims to unequivocally recognize the legal personhood of the unborn child in order to respect the equal dignity of all human beings, regardless of their stage of development. In this way, it will fulfill the ultimate goal of the 2020 reform of the Civil Code, which was ‘to focus the center of legal interest on the natural person, who is the core and justification of the law.’”
Some headlines point out that the Governor of Puerto Rico is Catholic, implying that the law is intended to end abortion opportunities in Puerto Rico. Estimates of the percentage of Puerto Ricans who are Catholic range from 56% to 85%. It’s fair to say that this is the majority religious view on the Island.
According to OSV News, Father Pérez Toro, pastor of Santa Rosa de Lima Church in San Juan and a legal contributor in the drafting of the 2020 Civil Code of Puerto Rico, celebrated the new law. “Thank God we have achieved clear recognition in Puerto Rico that the human being in gestation is a natural person with all rights, as if he or she had been born. Imagine what that means for the mother who now has a new instrument to defend her child,” said Father Pérez Toro, who added that every pregnant woman in Puerto Rico can now designate her unborn child as an heir.
However, recent surveys by Pew Research have found that opinions on abortion among Catholics are similar to those found among Americans in general. The same reports show that acceptance of abortion is more common among politically liberal people, including Democrats.
The law appears to reflect a conservative mindset. Politically conservative people are more likely to agree with statements like, “A fetus is a person with rights” than liberal ones. Red states are more likely to pass such laws than blue ones.
“National Right to Life celebrates this landmark achievement for the pro‑life movement,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, when the bill was signed into law. “Puerto Rico’s clear and courageous recognition of preborn babies as persons reflects a deep respect for life and provides a powerful example for lawmakers throughout the United States. Legal personhood for the preborn is not only consistent with science and human dignity but is the foundation upon which a culture of life can flourish.”
Political parties in Puerto Rico
Just as Puerto Rico voters do not generally align with the national political parties as Republicans and Democrats, they do not always align with the left wing/ right wing dichotomy found in the states. In the United States as a whole, voters are almost evenly split between the two parties, but even within those parties there are extremists and moderates, conservatives and liberals. Independents and moderates are a growing population of voters in the states. Puerto Rico, far from being the left wing Democratic territory some envision, is more politically and ideologically complex, as evidenced in the new law.
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