Ironically, eight months before Roe vs. Wade, personhood was also discussed in relation to protecting the environment. In the decision, Sierra Club vs. Morton , Justice Douglas argued the following words in his dissent:
“The ordinary corporation is a “person” for purposes of the adjudicatory process. So it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, ridges, groves of trees, swampland, or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology and modern life...With all respect, the problem is to make certain that the inanimate objects, which are the very core of America’s beauty, have spokesmen before they are destroyed...”Eight months later, he ruled with the majority in Roe vs. Wade that “the word person does not include the unborn.” Washington Post
