I've been meaning for some time to write about Colorado's attempt to define a fertilized egg as a human being with full rights. This antichoice ballot measure, known as Amendment 48, has got it all:
- Fetal (or in this case, even embryonic) "rights" trumping women's rights? Check. The amendment would officially change the definition of "person" to include "any human being from the moment of fertilization," therefore endowing all embryos in the state (whether they're implanted in a woman's body or not) with "inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of law."
- Co-opting feminist language? Check. The group backing the amendment is called Colorado for Equal Rights.
- Not just anti-abortion, but anti-contraception? Check. "This amendment would make the pill and IUDs illegal because they keep a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus."
- Ties to "some of the most virulent paramilitary antiabortion groups in the nation"? Check. Dr. James Patrick Johnston -- who is linked to groups like the violently Army of God -- is handling the "national outreach" to antichoice doctors and pharmacists on behalf of Amendment 48.
- A coordinated, national effort masquerading as "grassroots"? Check. There has been tons of laudatory coverage of Kristi Burton, the 21-year-old face of the embryos-are-people-too movement. But really the Colorado campaign -- as well as a similar attempts in Georgia, Oregon, and Montana -- were coordinated by a national group, the ultraconservative Thomas More Law Center.
- A disproportionate effect on young women, women of color, incarcerated women, and low-income women? Check. Defining a fertilized egg as a person doesn't just restrict access to abortion, contraception, cancer treatment, and fertility treatment. It opens the door to charges of child endangerment against pregnant women, typically those who are women of color or low-income. Basically, it allows for the policing of pregnant women's bodies and behavior. And which pregnant women get policed? Usually not those who are white and wealthy.
There's more on the community blog, where laurenv recently summed it up nicely:
I understand that many Coloradans are morally conflicted about abortion rights who may be inclined to vote yes on this measure because it would restrict access to abortions. But Amendment 48 is not a measure that can be easily squeezed into this over-simplified "pro-choice" or "pro-life" debate. I urge these voters to take a closer look at Amendment 48 and to understand that it would not only ban all abortions in every instance--even in the cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman is at risk--but would also threaten stem cell research, in vitro fertilization, common hormonal birth control methods (like the Pill), and access to emergency contraception for rape and incest victims.
For more on opposition efforts to Amendment 48 is at Protect Families, Protect Choices. And for those of you who are Colorado voters, be sure to vote no on Amendment 48 on November 4!
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That is deeply disturbing. Too many people see abortion as so black & white they don't think about how such restrictive legislation really affects women.
The fact that the government can control how you behalf while you're pregnant, because the thing inside you is a person? That could mean restricting your diet, your manner of dress, your living conditions, even your martial status!! ARGH! WTF!
Why do anti-choice people keep insisting that the Pill prevents a fertilized egg from implanting? Am I total numbskull for thinking it prevents the egg from even leaving the ovary, or are anti-choicers just relying on misinformation to scare people into siding with them? I hear this one All The Time.
Reminds me why I don't live in Colorado anymore.
I doubt that anyone on this site really needs to be persuaded to vote against this, but should you find yourself needing to persuade someone else, here's a good fact to use: if a woman were to spontaneously miscarry, she might actually be subjected to an investigation about the cause of death. I did a little bit of phone banking for the No on 48 campaign this summer, and even the people I talked to who called themselves pro-life thought that was intrusive, scary, and just cruel.
Most of the time I understand pro-life advocates. Although I don't agree with their position, I can see where they're coming from, especially when it comes from their religion. But what really irks me is the idea of outlawing contraceptives. Personally, I'm on the pill not for birth control, but for hormone control -- my period was all over the place before I went on it. There are all kinds of health reasons to use contraceptives. If contraceptives were illegal right now, how many families would have 8 kids they cannot afford to feed (especially in the present economic climate)? That sickens me more than any other issue about reproductive rights.
As far as I know, the Pill stops ovulation - I've never questioned it, because I used to actually feel myself ovulating (seriously, it was weird - I'd get this tight feeling, and when I prodded my lower abdomen, I could feel a firm little ball-thing, which I'm assuming was my ovary, whenever I was ovulating), and I haven't since I started the Pill. Another thread that I was looking at, however, said that IUDs might not prevent conception, just implantation, but I'm unsure how true that is. Anyway, my OB-GYNs have always said that the pill adjusts your hormones to you don't ovulate, and that's why it's so effective - no egg to fertilize!
Oh fuck the what? Glad I live in the Midwest (for now)..
Hannah, me too - without the Pill, I can't even leave my bed around my period because my cramps are so terrible. I was on it for 2 years before I even used it for birth control. Now I only have my period 4 times a year and it's pain-free, and it seriously makes me want to rip out anyone's eyes who wants to deny me that.
a recent trip to PP here in CO made me aware of this. it is such a dangerous amendment and i will be voting against it in november. i am just worried about most of the state, people like my family, who see this as a good thing because it recognizes the "fact" that life begins at conception. they won't look past that and really see the implications of this amendment and how it will affect many women who live here.
From what I understand about the pill, there is speculation that one way it may work is to thin the lining of the uterus so that if somehow an egg IS released and gets fertilized, implantation (and thus pregnancy) would be more difficult. However (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong!), I don't think there's any actual proof of this for the pill, the patch, IUDs, etc.
Even if the pill DOES act in such a way, I personally don't think that constitutes an abortion. In order for a woman to be pregnant, fertilization AND implantation must take place. If both do not, to me you aren't ending a pregnancy, you're preventing it from happening. Eggs are fertilized but don't implant all the time and women aren't even aware of it happening. But like I said, if I have any of my information wrong, someone definitely let me know!
This legislation horrifies me.
Let me chime in with alixana and Hannah - I went on the pill at 18 to escape the horrible cramps and 14+ days of bleeding a month - and I didn't have sex until I was 24. So I actually started for health reasons, not for birth control, and so do many others! It's ridiculous to deny access to it as it's so multifunctional. My sister was friends with a girl in high school who almost never STOPPED her period - if I remember correctly, she got about 5 days off a month. She started the pill in high school so that she could, y'know, function. I feel like it needs a new name, like "oral hormone control" or something, to emphasize that it's not JUST birth control, and maybe get some of the crazies off our backs. I dunno though. All I know is, I'd be a lot more miserable without it!
I feel like it needs a new name, like "oral hormone control" or something, to emphasize that it's not JUST birth control, and maybe get some of the crazies off our backs.
Yes! I really do wonder how many people understand that there are so many health-related uses for it, and just what they're trying to take away when they oppose it.
paperispatient, I've never heard that speculation about thining the lining of the uterus, interesting. I check in with my OBGYN each year about whether it's still safe that I'm on it after almost a decade, and all 3 of them that I've seen have said yes, yes, yes, and that it even preserves your fertility (no ripping of the ovary walls each month to release an egg) and that people who go off the Pill to get pregnant often find that it happens really quickly.
paperispatient is right about the theory re: how an egg can be fertilized while the woman is using hormonal birth control or an IUD. However, there is no way to prove that because at this point, we have no scientific way of detecting fertilization (part of the reason that pregnancy is measured from implantation, not conception). Most doctors do not believe that this takes place, but there is no way to prove it one way or another. So, the antis use that to their advantage.
Alixana, the speculation regarding the pill thinning the lining of the uterus would only apply to when you're taking the pill - it's not a permanent change that would have any impact on your later fertility, once you stop taking the pill and the hormones leave your system, I'd imagine any changes the pill caused would be undone. :) But like feminismforever said (and thanks for the corroboration!), there's no evidence that it even does affect the uterine lining, which makes me even madder that anti-choice advocates state it like it's an unquestionable fact!
@natbsat:
The sensation you've felt has the hilarious name of mittelschmerz. Since you're on the Pill, you've probably had a pelvic exam, but PLEASE mention that mass to your doctor, as that mass could have been a cyst attached to your ovary (which often shrink with Pill useage).
This proposition is one of those horrible cases where you can speculate wildly about all the bad results and be right.
The Colorado legislature would basically have to ban alcohol consumption by all women up to age 50. Early pregnancy is the most critical period of brain development and obviously, when you're least likely to know you're preggers.
Ask female voters if they want rights they CURRENTLY enjoy (like beer with a sandwich) taken away. Most women and most people don't understand how important abortion rights are because they think they'll never need one.
We (feminist, pro-choicers) have got to make people understand that the right ultimately wants to control women, and uses saving babies as an excuse that allows them to advocate taking reproductive control away from us. This is extremely evident to me, and sometimes I feel like no one else sees it.
This 'the pill kills' shit is outrageous. I honestly believe that very few people care about embryos as much as they are concerned with the moral outrage of modern women's ability to have sex outside of a secure marriage, lest there be deep shame heaped upon them by their community. This is their underhanded, repulsive way of forcing us back into the confines of a traditional, heterosexual family, be it abusive, oppressive, or pre-mature (see Bristol Palin).
Sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy when I read shit like this. Am I the crazy one? Seriously? Do you guys think this is really about saving little babies? I don't know what to think.
Katie -
Really? That would suck, but the last time I felt it was over 10 years ago, so I'm hoping that means that it's unlikely? It really was just a temporary thing, maybe less than an hour the morning I started to ovulate. I've had exams since I went on the pill every year, but I've never thought to mention that particular sensation.
That... is terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.
There is a legal route here that hasn't been discussed:
The question is one of body-autonomy. No born person has the *right* to 'use' his or her mother's body however it needs to survive; to confiscate his or her mother's organs or blood if they need them. The mother may donate them voluntarily, but they cannot be forcibly taken from her, even if her child will die without them.
If we are classifying born persons and unborn persons as exactly the same with no differences in terms of rights, so too would the donation of a woman's uterus and blood supply to an unborn child be strictly voluntary. And if she denies the use of her organs for the support of an unborn child, she can't be forced to surrender them any more than she could be *forced* to surrender a kidney or bone marrow to a born child of hers that needed them to live.
(huge sigh)
Sometimes I just feel so unbelievably overwhelmed when I realize that there are still this many ignorant and ridiculous people in our country. Here and now, in 2008... people never cease to amaze me. I kind of wish they would though....
I love how politicians can change the definitions of words to suit their needs. I mean c'mon that bullshit. let a women do what she wants with her body. These politicians need to take into consideration women who might live in poverity and cannot afford a child.
Katie: "The Colorado legislature would basically have to ban alcohol consumption by all women up to age 50. Early pregnancy is the most critical period of brain development and obviously, when you're least likely to know you're preggers."
Oooh! Oooh! Maybe that unknowingly pregnant woman who's had a glass of wine with dinner could be charged with providing alcohol to a minor. Y'know, since the embryo is a person, and is obviously under 21. The possibilities are ENDLESS.
Did we go back in time? I'm just curious, because this just seems like an issue that should have come up... well... like fifty years ago! What kind of a society do we live in that we have no other time but to obsess over the whole abortion thing. If your against it, then don't get one, quit your bitching, its that simple. And I want to see the man or person that is going to take away the birth control pill... If this were to ever pass, and it wont, but if it did, how many people would move out of Colorado?
How moronic - before I had an IUD prescribed for me 6 years ago (three cheers for the Mirena!), I had such problems with endimetriosis that even rolling out of bed for a few days to a week every month was borderline out of the question unless I doped myself to the gills, let alone the times that I had been admitted to hospital (and undergone surgery) because of the pain. Prior to that, I had been on the pill since I was 13 for the same reason, but had to stop when it turned out there was a risk of stroke in my family history, oops.
It makes me feel physically ill that such bills grant rights to a cluster of cells at the gross expense of the mother, turning her into little more than a host or a walking incubator. It's not too far a jump to then see women being sued for their miscarriages. Yuk.
"It opens the door to charges of child endangerment against pregnant women, typically those who are women of color or low-income. Basically, it allows for the policing of pregnant women's bodies and behavior. And which pregnant women get policed? Usually not those who are white and wealthy."
Speaking as a black woman, I am quite concerned about the fact that abortion appears to be a choice in greater percentages for us than for women of other races. That is not to say that nonblack women should have more abortions. It is to say that I'd like to see the abortion rate decline among black women. So I can't agree with the assertion above.
LorMarie, I agree that the disproportionate number of abortions by minority women is a problem - because it means either that minority women have more unplanned pregnancies, or that their financial circumstances prevent them from being able to go through with the pregnancy. That is what needs to be fixed.
(I believe the comment to which you're responding is a reference to several recent cases in which minority women have been charged for child endangerment or something because they did drugs while pregnant.)
LorMarie, minority woman here as well, too. I too would like to see the rate of abortions-in all communities--go down. But the "policing" mentioned in the quote you give is NOT the way to go about reducing abortions.
You've heard it said that "two wrongs don't make a right"? Well, high rates of teenage pregnancy and abortion in Black communities does not call for a "solution" of literally policing Black women and girls in what they do with their bodies.
The solution is birth control, public awareness, community-generated sex ed, and education for boys as well as girls.
Not criminalization.
For those wondering if the pill causes the lining of the uterus to thin: yes, it does, which is why I've barely had a period in 3? 4? years. The gyno I saw at the end of the series of tests for PCOS told me that-I don't have PCOS, just a normal effect of long-term pill use. It generally goes back to normal 3-ish months after stopping the pill.
The point I always bring up with regards to these laws is the chaos that it would create with the recording of vital statistics. Given that at least a third of pregnancies end in miscarriage before the first trimester ends, often without the woman knowing, we'd first have to have all menstrual blood analyzed for an embryo, and if one is found, record it as a death. And how would we determine the date of death? Based on the day the embryo is flushed from the uterus and ended up on the tampon, or some earlier date when the uterine lining started to shed, but prior to its being expelled. How would you list the age of the embryo?
In addition to registering births, marriages, and deaths, we would have to start registering conception, both to make sure all were carried to term or investigated as suspicious deaths, but also in order to give an 'age' on the death certificate of the embryo.
Do they have any idea how much all this is going to cost? With the mandatory monthly pregnancy tests for every Coloradan woman of childbearing age, and the extra staff, paper, and time required by the Vital Statistics Office to register all these conceptions and 'deaths'?
Depending on the miscarriage rate, we could end up with a death rate greater than our birth rate!
Hello all,
I don't believe that policing is the answer. What burdens me is that we will champion abortion rights, but pro-choice advocates tend not to focus on the "white elephant" in the room. That being the abortion rate among black women. It is my humble opinion that it is time to address that reality placing the options mentioned (birth control, sex ed, etc.) on the table. Pro-lifers don't shy away from the racial disparities of abortion. Why should feminists?
LorMarie, I've never met a feminist who shied away from that. It's one of the reasons we went from 'abortion rights' to 'reproductive rights' to 'reproductive freedom'
I think maybe you're misreading-the people here are, like you, AGAINST policing women's reproduction. And, like Okra says, we're FOR unrestricted access to birth control, for everyone. You write like you think we're disagreeing with you, and we're absolutely not.
You should check out http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/
Anti-abortion folks don't "shy away" from racial disparity in abortion insofar as they use it as a strawman to claim that pro-choice folks are racist. It's not as if they're trying to help women of color.
Feminists also champion sex ed and contraception, fyi. Most anti-abortion types don't support those things, which actually reduce the abortion rate.
I have a lot of problems with this proposed amendment, but this is the biggest one: how can women AND fetuses both be persons (with all of the legal rights that personhood entails), and inhabit the same body? If two entities are inhabiting the same body, they cannot have equal rights - the logistics make it impossible. Therefore it is a choice between the sentient and non-sentient being, and this amendment favors the non-sentient being.
If that isn't all kinds of fucked up, I don't know what is.
Admittedly, it never occurred to me why the lingo changed from abortion rights to reproductive freedom. If that's the case, it is a good thing. I believe that plenty of feminists here and elsewhere may agree with me. The problem is, those outside of the fold often never hear feminists talking about it. I guess that has more to do with a biased media wanting to paint feminists in a certain way.
Colorado pro-choice groups need a MASSIVE campaign right now against this, putting it not in the terms of getting abortions or not or access to birth control but instead putting it in terms of investigations into miscarriages, banning alcohol and drugs for women of childbearing age, mandatory pregnancy tests, and banning women from various jobs in case they might be pregnant.
If you put it in the terms of "These are the rights that YOU will lose, rights in YOUR everyday life, by voting for this bill" you will get many pro-lifers voting against it. If you make them understand the real implications of this bill instead of the anti-choice talking points and the good sounding "prevent abortion" the amendment could be struck down.
Is there such a campaign right now? I don't live in Colorado but I would gladly donate money to fund advertisements for such a campaign.
As for the expansion of the amendment to include contraceptives, I do see a racial angle - that is, the fear of the black (or minority) womb. I can't help but think this amendment is in response to the news some months ago that U.S. caucasians will be the minority in the coming decades. Many of the pro-lifers also happen to be racists who blame abortions (and contraception) for their dwindling numbers.
Ladies, this is some sort of derivation of Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" where forced pregnancies are pro forma in a dystopian society. I basically see this amendment as a backdoor scheme to get more "white babies," b/c obviously the ultra right, "good little women" can be counted on to carry a limited number of babies. So the "good white Christian" menfolk are going after those "heathen white women" to also carry their fair share of the burden to maintain the white race.
Of course, they may not expect every mother to keep her baby; but as Palin puts it, they're going to ramp up the services for adoption so that "willing" and more importantly, "white, Christian" families can take the kids and raise them.
Sounds like paranoia on my part, but who knows?
Sharon Cullars, that doesn't make sense. If that's what they wanted this is a strange way to do it, since due to the relative availability of condoms and other barrier methods for white families compared to minority families, and the number of minority women who abort compared to white women as stated upthread, this would actually result in a population boom among minorities. Especially since wealthy, usually white families will simply go to other states to get their birth control or abortions.
This will create an even greater number of minority births compared to Caucasian births, so if they had racial goals in mind they really didn't think it through at all. If that's what they wanted they would have to ban abortions and birth control just for white women, and still provide them to minorities.
"I have a lot of problems with this proposed amendment, but this is the biggest one: how can women AND fetuses both be persons (with all of the legal rights that personhood entails), and inhabit the same body? If two entities are inhabiting the same body, they cannot have equal rights - the logistics make it impossible. Therefore it is a choice between the sentient and non-sentient being, and this amendment favors the non-sentient being."
mayfly, thank you so much for articulating exactly how i feel about this! i have been trying to explain my problems with the amendment (and anti-abortion legislation in general) but i have never been able to find the right words. this is exactly why i find this troubling.
"how can women AND fetuses both be persons (with all of the legal rights that personhood entails), and inhabit the same body? If two entities are inhabiting the same body, they cannot have equal rights - the logistics make it impossible. Therefore it is a choice between the sentient and non-sentient being, and this amendment favors the non-sentient being."
Quoting for truth. Mayfly, this is exactly it. Thank you.
Brianna, the premise still has credence given that Colorado has a higher Caucasian population, so it may be that the promulgators of this amendment consider any minority birth boom negligible, at least for Colorado. Also, I'm still unconvinced that the abortion rate is higher for minority women. I've seen, or at least, read some of the panic about the diminishing numbers in white births and a lot of ultra conservatives not only blame abortions but contraceptives.
Brianna, the premise still has credence given that Colorado has a higher Caucasian population, so it may be that the promulgators of this amendment consider any minority birth boom negligible, at least for Colorado. Also, I'm still unconvinced that the abortion rate is higher for minority women. I've seen, or at least, read some of the panic about the diminishing numbers in white births and a lot of ultra conservatives not only blame abortions but contraceptives.