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Written by Lynn Paltrow for RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.
Next week, people in Colorado will be voting on Amendment 62, a ballot measure sponsored by PersonhoodUSA. This organization seeks to establish the “pre-born,” including eggs, embryos and fetuses as separate “legal persons with protection under the law.”
This organization claims that its goal is to end the “injustice of abortion.” In fact they are promoting a Fetal Separatist movement, one that is trying to legally separate pregnant women and the fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses inside of them. Their efforts are dangerous to all pregnant women including those who go to term, those who expect confidential medical care, and those who want to preserve their right to life and liberty.
The argument that eggs and fetuses may be treated as if they are legally independent of the women who carry them has been used to deprive pregnant women of their status as full constitutional persons. Angela Carder was forced to have cesarean surgery to advance the rights of the fetus inside of her. Shortly after the surgery both the baby and Ms. Carder died. Ms. Carder was deprived of her right to life. Recently, a pregnant woman was kept prisoner in a Florida hospital because doctors believed that doing so would advance the rights and health of the fetus. She nevertheless suffered a stillbirth. Ms. Burton was deprived of her right to liberty. Although courts in both cases eventually held that these deprivations of life and liberty were wrong, adopting fetal separatist measures would allow outsiders to take similar actions whenever they disagreed with the pregnant woman. . . .
10 Comments
Amendment 62 would take away a Woman’s right to her body and give some outside “Righteous” entity to strip away a woman’s expatation that she lives in her body and you can’t seperate them by some crazy assed admendment. this is so wrong on so many levels.
“Just say NO to Amendment 62″
If not it may one of your loved ones who falls victim to this idiotic proposal! Are you ready to watch that play out??
Life begins with the first breath. The very first breath.
Life begins with the first breath. The very first breath. Without that breath, there is no life.
This is about taking away women’s rights to do anything. The religious wingnut right will not rest till women have been forcedly removed from public life.
Alas, beliefs like this are by no means limited to the religious wing-nut right. I have seen them (or similar views) expressed in the ‘liberal’ blogosphere. Ominously, I have heard President O intone that abortion is not really about the woman and her body and her freedom. He urged women to ‘open their hearts’ to the arguments of those who are anti-choice.
It seems to me that the right to dominion and control of one’s own body is indivisible. There is no part of that right that can be taken that will leave behind a full constitutional (and human) person.
can’t have women making their own decisions! someone feels the need to control women.
Remember “Every sperm is sacred”? Then, we need sperm police too.
I agree, but it’s a core project of the hard right.
oh yes, it’s at the core of the core for the right. it’s the ultimate expression of authoritarianism. There have been times when i’ve dragged myself to the polls to vote for some ‘democrat’ because the ‘democrat’ was at least marginally less ant-choice than the repub.
A Survey USA poll from Oct. 27 says it’s losing 56-20; it’s the 25% of voters who are undecided that is worrisome; though a early October poll showed a whopping %0% undecided.
I got a robo call from Dr. James Dobson last night; he was unable to hear the unkind things I called him. ;~)
A similar amendment was handily defeated in 2008. Colorado was the first state to legalize abortion.
http://www.lifenews.com/2010/10/25/state-5601/
For all the people who think that personhood of zygotes is something from the Bible – up until the late 18th century the Church believed that a born child was not a person until it had been baptized. An event that sometimes did not take place until a couple of weeks after birth.
Unwed mothers disposed of babies by leaving them outdoors to die. No shame attached since they were not guilty of killing any real persons. No kidding – official stance of the holy Church.
My how things have changed.
And under this new law – women could go to jail for having a miscarriage – figures suggest that between 25-40% of all pregnancies end that way naturally – most before the woman is even aware that she is pregnant. I have seen estimates that the number is even higher.
So…how exactly is the Big Brother Government going to monitor that?
The right wing. Wants to have small government. No regulation for corporations. But wants government in my bedroom, in between my legs, in between me and my doctor, my sex partners, me and my insurance company, between me and anyone I talk to on the phone, write to over the internet, snooping in my library records, looking at my credit/debit card purchases, snooping at gps data from my cellphone and my car…