Kay Steiger has an interesting piece up at RH Reality Check about her day spent at an anti-choice conference. She gives us an inside look into the strategy discussions of the anti-choice movement, including a possible new tactic using defining personhood beginning a fertilization.
On Friday, dozens of pro-life activists gathered at the Personhood Conference in Washington, D.C. On Thursday, the 36th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, they had marched with the tens of thousands of anti-choice activists, but today these activists were talking about personhood, a new plan of attack for the anti-choice movement. These activists are frustrated and tired of incrementalist approaches to abortion. "It's not working," announced Shaun Kenney of the American Life League. "It's failing."The Personhood Conference, organized by the American Life League, enlisted speakers from a variety of segments of the pro-life movement, including a rising star, Kristi Burton. Burton is a 21-year-old woman who spearheaded the campaign for a state constitutional amendment in Colorado that sought to define life as beginning at fertilization. Burton says the Colorado personhood movement projects a "positive message," unites pro-lifers, and doesn't personally attack pro-choice activists.
Check out the full piece here.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: An inside look at anti-choice strategy.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/11607
Jennifer Block tells a great story about a Catholic couple, in her book, "Pushed" who is expecting their 7th child. The mother, having a history of delivering "large" babies vaginally (one at nearly 12 pounds) is told by 3 hospitals she tries to go to that she MUST have a c-section; one hospital begins the process of a court order to take custody of the unborn baby who is assigned a lawyer, because the hospital administrators say the unborn child "has rights." The woman does not want surgery and knows she can deliver this baby vaginally. So she labors in the car, waiting until it is too late for the surgery, before entering a 4th hospital, where she delivers her 7th child vaginally.
The couple, so traumatized by these events, begin political activism and took part in the March for Women's Lives in D.C. When interviewed and asked why a dedicated Catholic, pro-life stance family would march with pro-choicers their answer was this: if the state can force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term against her will, then it can also force her to have major surgery, a c-section, with all the accompanying risks against her will. Both laws violate a woman and her family's right to bodily integrity, informed consent and privacy. Both instances are brought on by the giving of the unborn "rights" and "personhood" prior to being born, over and above a adult woman's civil rights. Ms. Block asks the question- It is not WHEN does a fetus' rights begin, but when do we say a woman's rights end?
Conceptualizing personhood as beginning at fertilization would rule out not only abortion, but hormonal contraception like the pill and most IUDs, which can prevent a fertilized egg implanting in the womb. These people are against much more than abortion, and members of the public who think (ha!) that abortion is nothing to do with them should know the full ramifications of this idea.
Agreed. This is huge. And what about miscarriage? Following this line of thinking, a woman who miscarries may be investigated for what she did/didn't do to "cause it." The light bulb that came on in my head when I read Block's book recently is how the pro-lifers are actually undermining their own goals with this strategy. That some women who may WANT to carry their pregnancies to term are increasingly hesitant to do so in this climate, given how much scrutiny they are put under such as non-consensual mandatory drug testing, legal action for not receiving pre-natal care (where it is cost prohibitive or geographically limited) or knowing that a woman who has committed a crime may be forced to relinquish rights upon birth. All of the circumstances are forcing the criminalization of women due to their pregnancy status and using the unborn to act punitively. This is especially true in states where birthing options are VERY limited, midwifery is outlawed and women go "underground" to have their babies outside of the medical setting.
Good point. After all, if abortion is considered the murder of a life, then miscarriage is the natural death of a life. So if abortion were illegal on the basis of being infanticide, then wouldn't a mother who miscarries technically be a murder suspect? The same way a parent whose already-born infant dies could be a suspect for muder-by-neglect or -abuse?
The consequences would be disastrous, especially in cases where the birth mother and birth father are at odds (re: "She killed my baby!") or in cases of surrogacy, where pregnancy becomes a contractual obligation.
I am curious to kown if the Anti choice crowd realized that Ms. Burton human life amendment in Colarado failed with 73% voting against it and 24% for it?
Gosh, even in James Dobson homestate, the headquater of Focus on the Family was not able to convince enough people for vote for the human life amendment.
Damn straight! I'm happy to have contributed to that 73%!
Fucking nuts!
I know! Like taking away my right to choice (and birth control) isnt personally attacking me!
And contrariwise, they see your decisions about your own body as a personal attack on them! Perverse doesn't begin to describe it.
So pro choicers aren't going to feel attacked when you place more importance on a fertilized egg than a woman?...wow they're not even really trying are they?
The debate about 'personhood' is rather alarming. I'm not sure about the U.S. debates regarding this term, but I know, in Canada, women were not defined as 'persons' until 1930. There's a famous case called the 'Persons' case, put forward by the Famous Five (women), arguing that women should be see as 'persons' under our constitution and, therefore, have a right to sit on the senate. Previously, to 1930, under law, "women were eligible for pains and penalties, but not rights and privileges." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwards_v._Canada_(Attorney_General)]
There's a statue of the famous five on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, and every time I walk by it, I stop and think about all the countries in the world where women are denied the status of 'personhood', and hope that some day, we will all have this fundamental acknowledgment.
So, in short, it makes me rather queasy that there are those, in a democracy such as the United States, in the year 2009, who would deny the rights and privileges granted to women as 'persons', and would, instead, grant those precious rights of personhood to an egg. If a zygote is a person, what does that make the women carrying it?
The basic right of being defined a 'person' is a right to bodily integrity. Can you have two persons in one body?
Personally, I've never even found the debate about 'personhood' to be coherent as framed by the anti-choice crowd. It completely avoids the question of why personhood matters. Who cares, for example, if a fetus has human DNA? A woman has the abilities to think, feel, form relationships, claim her own rights, and make her own decisions; a fetus has none of those things, and can't be offered the kinds of protection anti-choicers want to without preventing women from exercising those aspects of their personhood that make personhood matter.
The anti-choice argument over fetal 'personhood' ends up, if you look more closely, being an argument that a fetus has a soul and that the soul is what matters and must be protected. It may not be framed in that way, but the argument over 'personhood' always avoids the discussion of the issues that would make clear that that's what the argument is all about. The framing of the anti-choice position as a 'personhood' issue is what shows it to be a religious position, regardless of anti-choice claims to the contrary. Without a fetal soul, the 'personhood' argument against abortion falls apart.
Well, my concern is not so much that the 'zygote as person' debate can hold water, but that women's rights as 'persons' are still (historically) relatively new. And anyone who claims that a 'zygote is a person' is essentially denying a that a pregnant women is a person in her own right. And that type of thinking is what I find alarming...
I love this argument as a philosopher, where personhood is typically defined in terms of mental states. A person, generally speaking, is anything that is sentient and self-aware. Good luck convincing me that a multi-cellular embryo is either sentient or self-aware. My cat is more likely to be a person than the result of 95% of abortions. And if we're not talking about that, then what are we talking about? If I remove someone's brain from their body, are they a person? What about a dead body? They both have human DNA, but I don't think we want to call them persons. This argument is just terrible, and appeals to ignorance. Of course, that's not really surprising.
Life begins at Fertilization? Gosh...I guess I'll need to go to the hospital every time I have sex for a birth and death certificate, seeing as how Most eggs do become fertilized but die off within a few hours or days. Because...you know, to be considered a person in this country you have a birth certificate and social security number. Are they really going to issue that to every pregnant woman?
If Life begins at Fertilization, that means the pill will be outlawed. Seriously.
If I hear another Anti-Choicer quote Horton Hears a Who, I'll slap them. Or at least I'll really, really want too.