Not a person.
North Dakota's House of Representatives has passed a fetal personhood bill, HB 1572, that declares fertilized eggs have the same rights as human beings. Like the recently defeated ballot measure in Colorado, this is designed to pose a legal challenge to Roe v. Wade. It wouldn't just ban abortion, but also contraception.
From a press release from Planned Parenthood:
"HB 1572 is dangerous, far reaching and allows the government, not women and families, to make critical decisions about health care," said Sarah Stoesz, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Minnesota (PPMNS)."Women and families, not politicians, should decide what's best for their unique circumstances. Whether the issue is abortion, birth control, or in vitro fertilization, women, in consultation with doctors should make these personal medical decisions," said Stoesz.
Here's hoping the bill is rejected -- but the state senate and governor are both anti-choice.
More at the Pursuit of Harpyness, Shakesville, and Kay Steiger's blog.
Related:
An inside look at anti-choice strategy
New anti-choice organization: Personhood USA
Colorado amendment would value zygotes over women
Anti-choicers try to define fertilized egg as person
Colorado anti-choicers push for "personhood" amendment
Roe v. embryo?
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The ND house also passed a bill requiring docs to inform their patients that, in aborting a fetus, they are ending a unique human life. They refused, however, to pass a bill that would raise traffic fines from amounts set in the 1950's (the current rates are laughably low and do nothing to deter the MANY bad drivers in ND). A little backwards? Maybe.
Equating a traffic ticket to killing an unborn person is ridiculous. Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Can someone explain what will happen if this law does pass? Will it actually make abortion illegal there ,or will it go on ot the supreme court to fight Roe v Wade, or what?
The Constitution, which guarantees the right to life of a US Citizen, and yes, a preborn person is a US Citizen, will prevail over the "right" to kill that human. Read the twisted decision of the Supreme Court "Roe v. Wade". Even Bluckman, who concocted this decision said that the case will collapse once the personhood of preborn babies is established.
I think it will simply be a case of yet another crackpot state law that's unenforceable because it's unconstitutional but still sits in the law books. Am I right?
(I believe as an example one of the states has a law for a religious test for office in direct contradiction to the constitution)
Yes, you're right. Legislators can make all the laws they want, but it doesn't make them constitutional or enforceable. This one will be overturned if it passes.
Sorry, I should have read your comment more closely. This law won't just sit on the books, it will be actively challenged and struck down. Laws that remain on the books that are unconstitutional are typically old laws that are not enforced so they remain unchallenged.
You should have said "Roe v. Wade" will be overturned. It is an old law and unconstitutional. So was the slavery eventually outlawed in this country. Even Bluckman, the man who concocted Roe v. Wade decision acknowledged that the case will collapse once the personhood of a preborn baby is established. Abortion kills a beating heart.
This is just backward.
It is backward and it's scary. It's the first step into changing our nation into something out of George Orwell's "1984".
So if a fertilized egg has the right to be protected even though it's a parasite depending on the pregnant woman, does it mean people who have been born have the right to parasitize off other people's bodies without their consent? I say we all move to North Dakota and plug ourselves into their congresspeople's circulatory systems. Surely they wouldn't mind.
exactly-legally it doesn't matter if the fetus has a right to life. so do I, but if I need a kidney/bone marrow/any other donation, my brother could, if he wanted, not consent to give it to me. Even if it leads to death. I keep waiting to see a big pro choice representative make that argument.
Exactly! This is the argument that brought me past my indoctrined-from-infancy "Christian" view that the egg had more rights than the mother.
Thanks for posting that. I was wondering if it had occurred to anyone else.
Me too! Funny how obvious it seems now after years of being vehemently anti-choice. Whether the fetus is human, whether it has any rights at all or even just as many rights as President Obama, all completely irrelevant. No human has the right to siphon nutrients off of my body. Certainly we aren't going to suggest a fertilized egg has MORE rights than a human (in which case I vote we start deciding that those rights include the right to live in a host whose every last whim is fully catered to).
Fetus as parasite? This is absurd. I dare you to find a single science book that describes the fetus as a parasite. This is laughable. If not repugnant.
How would you define the biological relationship, technically?
It isn't a cuddly description, but it certainly meets the basic definition of parasitism, at least until the fetus is developed enough to survive outside of the womb. One organism takes from another organism that which it needs to survive. Removal of the first organism from the host organism means certain death for the first organism, as it is unable to survive on its own. And the pressense of the first organism lessens the biological fitness of the host organism, who must consume more calories to support the aditional organism, grows increasingly limited in mobility, and can suffer a great number of serious health problems or even die because of the pressense of the "parasite".
The term "parasite" might seem offensive to some,but the word fit.
"A parasite is an organism which exploits another organism for the purpose of staying alive."
"in order to be considered a parasite, an organism must depend on another for food, energy, or some other service, such as incubating and raising young. In addition, the parasite must bring nothing to the relationship, creating an arrangement which may be neutral or harmful, but never positive"
For example, if you do not give the embryo/fetus enough calcium it will leech it from your bones and teeth. The fetus will take what it needs.
Just because its often a welcome parasite doesn't mean its not a parasite. It is a separate organism that lives inside a woman and gets its nutrients from her body. That's a parasite.
It is essentially a parasite. The human body will actually attack an embryo/fetus developing in the womb depending on the woman's blood type.
Any woman with a negative blood type is suppose to get a shot, I'm blanking on the name, when she's trying to get pregnant. This is to combat her body from attacking the embryo since it sees it as a foreign object and tries to rid itself of it.
I've always thought this is the better argument. I don't thing a fetus counts as a person, but so what if it does? I still shouldn't have to let a person live inside me and suck my resources and possibly risk my health or life if I don't want to.
One difference between your baby "sucking the resources" from you (your way of describing one of the most natural and central processes to life), is that your actions (in the vast majority of cases) created the life, so you are responsible for it's needs. Your actions for instance didn't create your bother's need for a new kidney.
Also, tell me, what is different existentially between a child's needs within the womb and any number of other situations where people depend on the sustenance provided by others?
- People in Hospitals, on IVs, etc
- Parents with special care children (wheelchair bound, need help getting dressed bathing, etc)
- Parents with injured children (same as above)
- How about just feeding and clothing our kids?
Taking your argument to it's logical conclusion, doctors should be able to unglug their patients the moment they don't feel like caring for them, or refuse ER patients if they're too busy (of course, they don't -- do you think they SHOULD?)
More to the point, if your child needs something from you, but you don't want to give it, and your child suffers, we in this culture call that child abuse. The term we use for parents who kill or neglect their child to death is "homicide". You may not be your brother's keeper, but you sure as hell are your childrens'.
Lest you respond "orphanages", If you child died on the way to the orphanage because you refused to feed or cloth him in cold weather, you'd be criminally responsible. Adoption is a 9-month drive to the orphanage.
By the way, while these are logical arguments, it's pretty reprehensible and selfish to see the revulsion shown in this thread towards what would be your own child in this circumstance (and not a brother needing a risky kidney transfer), on a moral front.
The primary difference in your examples is that the caretakers have a legal obligation to provide care in each of your examples. A biological parent not attending to the needs of their child is not child abuse if the child is under the care of a different legal guardian, for example.
In the US you cannot be legally recquired to give up any of your bodily resources for the health benefit of another, even if your actions created the initial need. For example, if you stab someone in the kidney you cannot be compelled to give them your kidney or even blood for the operation even though it was your action that created the need for a new kidney in the first place. If you agree to provide a biological resource to another you can back out of that agreement and cannot be forced to comply.
Why is pregnancy different? Why do zygotes, embryos, and fetuses have more rights prior to birth than the rest of us?
Do you think I could have said "example" one more time in that first paragraph? :/
Liberalism and feminism is a mental disorder.
"Also, tell me, what is different existentially between a child's needs within the womb and any number of other situations where people depend on the sustenance provided by others?"
If a medical caretaker quits or if the parents stop taking care of their children, it's possible for another person to be hired or take over the guardian role. That alone, is a pretty big distinction.
Again, you are using example of people. A fetus/embryo is not a person. There is no comparison between a 8 week embryo to an 8 year old child. None what so ever.
Peny, is there a difference between a baby 1 minute before it passes through the birth canal and 1 minute after it passes the birth canal?
Liberalism is a mental disorder.
I keep waiting to see a big pro choice representative make that argument.
Actually, it's already happened. This argument (or one more similar to what I suggested, a famous violinist plugged into your circulatory system so he doesn't die of kidney failure) has been made by Judith Jarvis Thomson in A Defense of Abortion in 1971. That whole piece is awesome and very logically tight.
fair enough. I actually read that in a college ethics class. I was referring more to the fact that I've never heard any anti choice lawmaker asked in a public forum if they support compulsory bone marrow donation or anything like that. something outside of philosophical writing.
I posted on a comments thread somewhere else that anyone who supports forced-pregnancy should also support a hypothetical system where everyone has to donate any organs they can live without to anyone else who happens to be a match. If they want we can make it so you're only eligible if you've had sex, and the organs go to an innocent child. But you still don't have a choice in donating them.
No one liked that idea.
I finally read that piece all the way through. I suspect the reason people don't use that argument more is that its really hard to get through her writing. I mean, she makes very good points, but she writes in a classical philosophical style which is going to be hard for a lot of people.
Someone should reuse those arguments in a good, easy to read satire, and get it published.
Well, according to some pro-lifers on another comment thread here, because you are aware that sex can result in pregnancy, if you make the choice to have sex you are implicitly consenting to give up your bodily autonomy to a fetus. The old "if you don't want to get pregnant (or, be the unwilling support system for a fertilized egg), don't have sex!" ABSTINENCE 4EVAR!
Some people will just go to any lengths to tell women what they are and are not allowed to do with their bodies. This ruling makes me scared.
If those pro-lifers stopped to think about it for a moment, they would realize that this idea can be extrapolated to include all mundane things that carry a known possibility of harm. If you know driving can result into getting in an accident, you implicitly consent to all the potential losses and injuries and have no right to seek compensation. If you go out of the house, you consent to be killed by a falling piano, etc. I doubt they would like that idea.
I'm also pretty sure there are no laws that require someone who consents to be an organ donor and then changes their mind right before the operation to go through with it. Even if it's too late to find another donor and the sick person is pretty much condemned to death. Therefore, it would be inconsistent to force even the women who intentionally got pregnant to carry the pregnancy to term.
Of course, since it's all about controlling women's sexuality, like you said, these types of arguments are going to fly right over their heads.
If lives didn't hang in the balance, us conservatives wouldn't get a damn about your sex life. Sex is a powerful as a gun in a person's hand, when it comes to creating and destroying life in an abortion culture - perhaps it would be helpful to the average feminist to think of the issue in these term, and imagine how she'd feel if someone said "I have a RIGHT to my gun, no matter how many people get killed per year by them...."
The difference between pro lifers and pro choices really comes down to two things. 1) The value people put on life, and 2) the value people put on responsibility. Those who devalue life naturally have no issue with abortion. (They ignore medical and genetic proof that the unborn are both "alive" and "human" at the earliest stages, and tend to focus on personhood, a far more ambigious and therefore tenable ground to deadlock on.)
Those who run from responsibility always have, at some deep level, a utopian view of their own control over their lives. They want to believe if they have a "whoops" moment and a child results, that there is a "get out of jail free" card (and this is true equally of men as women, obviously).
There is no such card in life, except at the expense of others. In this case, the cost of an innocent human life. The fact that one has that choice abort is a separate matter - that is the transaction however, and it's inescapable.
I'm feminist, pro-choice, and pro-gun, lol.
Also, you forgot the part where pro-choicers don't want the government's hand firmly stuck up the vaginas of private individual women from a myriad of backgrounds, situations, and opinions, and pro-lifers do. Then again, you forgot a lot of things in your ridiculously biased black-and-whiting of the movements which you went ahead and stated as fact anyway (fact that naturally supported the conservative position).
(They ignore medical and genetic proof that the unborn are both "alive" and "human" at the earliest stages, and tend to focus on personhood, a far more ambigious and therefore tenable ground to deadlock on.)
Of course a fetus is alive and obviously it's human (they certainly aren't kittens or fish until birth). Perhaps the reason they focus on an ambiguous concept is because the development of a sperm and egg into an independent, rights-having person is a nuanced, complex process. You may accuse of pro-choicers of having a utopian view of the control of their bodies, but you live in a world of black and white.
Did it ever occur to you that getting an abortion is one of several ways to "take responsibility" for one's actions? Theoretically, a woman COULD decide she's "pro-life" and therefore not going to get an abortion, but then sit around and do nothing to nourish the fetus in her womb. She could sit on the couch and drink whatever she wants and eat whatever she wants and not take any prenatal vitamins, etc., etc., etc. She could essentially ignore the fact that another entity is slowly growing inside of her and, nine months later, pop out a severely damaged little baby. But, hey, she didn't abort it! This, according to you, is apparently a better version of "taking responsibility" than actually going to the doctor and DEALING with the fact that there's another organism inside your body.
See, in the real world, "taking responsibility" means making hard choices. It doesn't mean pretending there is only one choice so that you don't have to consider the ramifications of your actions. It doesn't mean abdicating responsibility over your body to the government. What you advocate is the OPPOSITE of responsibility. How can you have responsibility without choice? It's meaningless to say that a woman "took responsibility" by giving birth to a child when THAT WAS HER ONLY OPTION. You can't force someone to be responsible. You might be able to force them to take certain actions that you want them to, but don't make the mistake of confusing forced action with actual responsibility. The world is far, FAR more complex than you paint it.
Your argument is complete misguided. No surgical abortion is performed in this country on fertilized egg, or in any country. The killing of human persons begins once the mother figures out that there is this "parasite" as you call it. You know, by your argument, we all start as parasites. Does that make any sense? The same liberals that have no problem killing the preborn would go out of their way to protect the unhatched eggs of "endangered species". Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Beyond abortion, this bill would have ridiculous far-reaching consequences that would require massive changes to many of the existing laws. If this ends up passing, I suspect it will be struck down on first appeal and it will certainly never make it past the circuit court. That doesn't make it less disturbing that ND legislators are willing to pass this bill.
Wow, North Dakota just made the top of my list of places I will never move to. If this insult to humanity actually passes, I hope it's struck down as unconstitutional with all due haste.
I just have to say, I love the picture and the caption.
"Here's hoping the bill is rejected -- but the state senate and governor are both anti-choice."
At the least, let's hope they're not completely mad.
the united states is becoming less and less progressive everyday. this is a sad day for sure! a fertilized egg is not a fucking person. it's an egg. how about the chicken egg that is taken away from the hen? it's an egg, not a chicken. it has the capability to become a chicken, but it is JUST AN EGG-and we eat those! hope this makes sense...because we should be protecting them, too...they're fertilized...
I was under the impression that usually they aren't fertilized. You have to look for special ones to raise a chick from, don't you?
quite possibly. I am not too sure about it, but either way, we are eating something that has the potential to become a chick. I don't know if im making myself clear :( but it just angers me that this country is going backwards instead of forwards with its policies.
Most eggs that people eat are unfertilized, although it is possible to buy fertilized eggs for cooking-- I guess some people think they have more nutrients or something? I forget the rationale, but you can find them in some stores. Its not very common though as far as I know. Most hens that are used for laying eggs to be sold commercially are kept far away from roosters so there's no possibility of the eggs being fertilized.
...I don't eat fertilized chicken eggs...and unless you raise your own chickens (with Roosters), you don't either.
I agree with your backwards instead of forwards. I don't know that I agree with the example of a chick, since the law says fertilized eggs and they aren't, and since most eggs you buy can't become a chick-I've never even heard conservatives talk about unfertilized eggs.
I don't think the chicken egg argument is that relevant-- after all, most people eat actual grown CHICKENS, not just the eggs, so the issue here is more species than fertilized vs unfertilized.
So are we going to have autopsies and funerals for all miscarriages? Considering how many pregnancies end in miscarriage...
Oh and what happens if you didn't know you had miscarriage...can you charged with improper disposal of a body?
Idiocy.
Oy. Anyone know how easy it is to get an abortion in southern Manitoba or Saskachewan?
That is much, much more expensive and tricky now that you have to have a passport to go into Canada. A good $100 at least, plus a waiting period of about 6 weeks, if you're lucky. Plus, distances to towns in Canada large enough to have abortion facilities are quite significant, I'm sure.
If you're towards the eastern side of the state, it would be much easier to go across the river to (my home state) Minnesota.
And what about fertility clinics? Are all those frozen embryos being imprisoned against their will? What if the freezer breaks? Are the doctors charged for serial murder? And what if the IVF doesn't take?
So they want to make abortion illegal AND get rid of contraception which is the biggest aid in preventing the need for such an activity....DOH!
So, does this mean if you miscarriage you have to face a manslaughter trial?
Exactly, are the police going to launch an investigation whenever a woman has a miscarriage? Are they going to create a new unit? How are they going to determine who committed "murder"? How about if a woman had a drink or smoked cigarettes prior to realizing she was pregnant,will she be charge with manslaughter? How about if a pregnant woman under stress from work has a miscarriage, can her boss/company be charged with manslaughter?
We're in the midst of one of the worst economic recessions since the Depression, and yet N.D. lawmakers have the leisure time to dream up and vote on bills like that that have little impact on people's lives, are overly intrusive and are bound to be unenforced and overruled?
This makes me feel uneasy and scared. I just don't know. The what if's are aturning.
Re the contraception issue... just one request for clarification. I may very well simply misunderstand how this works, but isn't it true that contraception like the morning-after pill actually only prevents a fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus? Because if so, then this law wouldn't make that illegal, unless they happen to have a law on the state books giving all human beings the right to implant themselves in women's uteruses. If the fertilized egg decides to expel itself from the woman's body, in fact, isn't it a bit protectionist of the government to deny it that right?
The morning after pill doesn't primarily prevent implantation (though some people contend it thins the uterine lining a bit, and argue that it should be banned for that reason), it prevents an egg from being released by an ovary. If an egg is already on its way, it doesn't matter how many hormones you take -- a sperm may still get to it, and you may still get pregnant, thin lining or not.
What I can I do to stop this?
Hopefully, even though the governor and senate are anti choice they will see that this bill will create more problems than it will solve. In fact I don't know how anyone can't see that.
Visions of "The Handmaid's Tale" are in my head, and for women that is possibly the sickest and most terrifying book to read. I am sick of the religious right in this country trying to control women and their sexual choices by pretending to care about "the sanctity of human life." (Yeah, while they support a war that is killing our troops and Iraqi civilians....) It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
When it comes down to it though, most anti-choicers will always reveal their most important reason for opposing abortion: Women need to face "consequences" of their actions. They're just as woman-hating as the Muslim extremists they are supposedly so much more superior than.
Interestingly as my husband I were driving today I said "Yeah that's like that stupid anti-choice idea that the minute an egg is fertilized it's a person." He replied, "What! So is a seed a tree?"
I said something similar in a recent post.
An acorn is not an oak tree.
And a baby is not a man, a girl is not a boy, a toddler is not an octogenarian. But which is not a human life?
Fun with Semantics 101.
You know what's funny? All those things you just described were people. You know what's not a person...a fetus. And it's not semantics, it's reality.
Wow, so anti-choicers see an egg as deserving human rights. Unfortunately, they seem incapable of believing the same thing about a woman. :(
The problem is that these people aren't pro-life, they are pro-god's Will. They are for abortions as long as they are "naturally" at the hands of god. Anything that diverts in their minds from "god's Will" is wrong. At the end of the day, it will be YOUR resources being used, YOUR time being used, YOUR money being used, and most importantly, YOUR body. None of them will contribute, and they damn sure won't adopt the children once they get out of the womb. Alot if this is religion (the thing about it being a person at conception is a religious thing due to the belief of a soul) and it is definitely anti-woman and it hurts the children who are born to dismal circumstances since they same people don't fight for their quality of life as fervently as they fight for them to be alive. When I wrote an essay basically depicting this, no pro-lifer was smart enough to contend with what I was saying since their beliefs lie in religious fantasy rather than reality. We need to start calling them as they are, not pro-life, but pro-god's Will.
Right. But only the will of their specific version of God, which suspiciously doesn't seem to mention the horrors of abortion in any of his literature.
I agree. The Bible itself does not mention abortion. AT.ALL. Anti choicers can "interpret" passages to their cause all they want,but they really do not have a case to argue that the bible is pro-life. They cannot even use the "thou shall not kill" argument because the bible is FILLED with killings including pregnant women.
If anything the bible is NOT very kid friendly. Passages regarding children are about child abuse and murder. Shit you can stone your kid to death if he/she is "rebellious"!
Psalm 137:9
“Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.”
Leviticus 20:9
For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death.
Numbers 31:17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones.
2 Kings 8:12 dash their children, and rip up their women with child.
# 2 Kings 15:16 all the women therein that were with child he ripped up.
Wow. Finally, progress.
Nope.
Just the same old theocratic nonsense.
When pro-lifers end poverty and start paying me to have kids, then I think, we will be living in a pro-life culture.
Right on! I made those same comments to one today. All he could throw at me were bible passages after throwing in facts and logic. When he saw my pic, this one religious psycho zealot asked if some guy, "hurt me," stating that's why I took my stance. Not only are they anti-woman but creepy, rapist, molesting somebodies. I'm not religious at all, so the truth of science fact is what leads me, not their version of a destructive, evil god.
This idea is completely ridiculous. The thought that people who have absolutely NO knowledge of the circumstances of women surrounding their reason for an abortion, attempting to take decisions into their own hands is sickening.
As a woman facing the decision right now, I can tell you it's not an easy decision to come to. There is so much to consider from your financial situation to your mental health and everything in between. Nothing is black and white.
We are a nation prided for our continuous steps forward to improve the quality and freedom of life our people live, so why do they want to move backwards in woman's rights?
I'd like to see the numbers of abortions preformed before contraception was widely available; and the number of home abortions preformed if this law is passed, and spreads.
Metal coat hangers anyone?
In the interest of protecting fertilized eggs, let's round up anyone who is seeking an abortion and bring them to ND. Let's see how the legislators handle the influx of unwanted pregnancies.
Let's say this law holds (which it won't). But let's say it does. Does that mean all these unborn babies have to be counted in the 2010 census?
So if they determine that the fetus has rights, and women aren't allowed to have abortions, would this mean that women no longer have rights? And if so, if the fetus is a female, then it's okay to have an abortion? Welcome back to the dark ages. Hope they start paying the trash guys extra money to dig out dead babies in the landfills.