7 states pursue personhood rights
UPDATE, 2/24, 4:55p: Word on the street was wrong. I have it on good authority that the ND Catholic Conference and ND Right to Life do NOT support the ND personhood legislation but are maintaining a neutral stance.
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UPDATE, 2/24, 10:45a: Word on the street is Christopher Dodson and the ND Catholic Conference as well as ND Right to Life are now supporting the ND personhood legislation, which is good news, if true.
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2/23: The Christian Post reported February 21 that the personhood movement is gaining momentum…
As part of a renewed pro-life strategy to challenge Roe v. Wade, lawmakers in 7 states are working toward legislation to grant constitutional rights to human embryos.
5 states, including MD, ND, MT, SC and AL, have recently introduced “personhood” bills. The bills affirm the right to life for pre-borns from the moment of conception….
In OR, pro-life advocates have also begun a petition drive to place a person amendment before voters in 2010. A similar effort is expected to be launched in MS in coming weeks.
I spoke with Keith Mason, co-director of the group shepherding these efforts, PersonhoodUSA, and asked him the obvious question: Do personhood proponents really think legislation or initiatives designed to topple Roe v. Wade stand a chance of ultimate success, particularly now that Obama is president and will assuredly lurch the Supreme Court far left?
Keith responded:
The question I always ask when someone says we’re going to fail at the Supreme Court level is, “Was Dred Scott a failure?” That Supreme Court decision denied personhood rights to black Americans.
But the decision generated the social tension necessary to create the 14th Amendment.
We can also learn from the partial birth abortion ban efforrts. The Supreme Court struck down the first pba ban. But during the entire effort we were educating people on the humanity of the unborn at later stages.
Some fear a Supreme Court decision against a personhood law or state constitutional amendment would create an abortion super right. But any abortion restriction legislation could lead trigger the same decision. Yes, we could lose.
But the real question is if we’re not going to start advocating for the foundational issue now, when will we? Our country is sliding so fast. Will it ever be ready to totally abolish abortion if we don’t push it?
The term “pro-life” has really lost its meaning in many ways. So many politicians now say they’re pro-life with exceptions. But when someone advocates for the rights of the preborn children, that changes the dynamics. It changes the threshhold of who’s pro-life. Those pushing for personhood are raising the pro-life standard.
Inside baseball…
According to personhood peeps, National Right to Life attorney and personhood naysayer Jim Bopp hasn’t been heard from since he bashed the CO initiative. For a time Bopp was actively fighting personhood efforts.
Still, ND Right to Life opposes the ND personhood legislation. And the legislation only lost in committee by 1 vote thanks to behind the scenes efforts by ND Catholic Conference Executive Director Christopher Dodson.
But since legislative committees in ND only make recommendations, the legislation got a vote on the House floor and passed. It is expected to pass in the Senate, where 30 ND senators claim to be pro-life and only 24 votes are needed. Gov. John Hoeven is pro-life and has stated he would sign a personhood bill.
[HT for Christian Post article: proofreader Angela]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
I don’t understand why the headlines say 7 states pursue personhood rights and then fails to mention Georgia.
Rep. Martin Scott sponsored the nation’s first Human Life Amendment (HR 536) in March of 2007. He re-filed the HLA as H.R. 5 in November of 2008. A Senate version is in committee and will be debated in two weeks.
This is not to point out that TWO personhood bills are in process as we speak with nationally respected scientist/bioethicist David Prentice coming in next week to speak in favor of a Senate leadership sponsored bill that would find all embryos as human beings and not property (SB 169). It is Georgia’s version of an anti-Dred Scott bill.
For the sanctity of life in the 21st century,
Dan Becker
Ga RTL
“Personhood” legislation goes right to the heart of the matter. Is the unborn baby a human being, and if so, does the unborn infant enjoy the same rights and protections as do the rest of us? In a more sane time, such a question would not have to be raised. But we are living in an era where our moral compass has been in serious disrepair for quite some time.
In a certain sense “Personhood” legislation could be seen as the polar opposite of FOCA. Where FOCA would wipe out any and all restrictions in procuring an abortion, “Personhood” has the potential to turn the tables on the matter 180 degrees. When unborn babies are finally given the legal protections they deserve, the abortion industry would shut down overnight.
Of course, the very moment a Governor signs this legislation into law, the ACLU and NOW will be there with their lawyers to seek immediate court ordered injunctions against its implementation. If they succeed in obtaining these injunctions, the next stop will be the Supreme Court.
It is not a matter of “if”, it is a matter of “when” abortion will finally be recognized in law as a fundamental usurpation of an individual’s right to life. Pro-lifers are keenly aware of where we currently stand, and we ought to work and pray as never before that hearts be changed.
Dan, sorry! The information came from Christian Post, which got its info from PersonhoodUSA. I checked PersonhoodUSA and it doesn’t list GA. What gives?
when the people of these states discover that “personhood” is the product of religious crackpots who want to ban all forms of birth control, put a cop, a judge and two lawyers into every bedroom and doctor’s office, and make the Pope the absolute ruler of the United states, I expect “personhood” to fail by more than the 23 to 77 margin of defeat in Colorado.
Thank you Jill! Personhood all the way!
One thousand pardons from Dan Becker, the leader of one of America’s most effective Christian groups, Georgia Right to Life. Georgia came close to getting their Human Life Amendment on the ballot last year. Lord willing, they will do so next year. Until then, their noncompromising bills should be emulated by all states.
Cal Zastrow, Personhood USA
And Super Kudos to Dan and Georgia RTL for their
Personhood.net web site!!
Hey BS, it was 73 to 27 :)
(Every vote counts, no?)
What a thrilling article by Jill, and thank you Dan for the crucial update and for Georgia’s leadership! And Cal Zastrow, thank God for you, Keith Mason, and PersonhoodUSA!
-Bob Enyart Denver KGOV.com
So are you going to make possession of condoms a crime? I mean we’ve gone from “every sperm is sacred” to “every egg is human”? Criminalizing the pill? Or criminalizing menstruation?
Wow YLT, good job. Way to take our position to its “logical conclusion.”
EVERY SINGLE TIME you post, you show your ignorance of biology. Every single time. If you don’t know the difference between an oocyte and an embryo by now, I don’t know what to tell you. How mant times have we explined this to you and how many times have you just plain ignored it? And it’s apparent that you don’t give a crap either. You just come on here with these snappy “GOTCHA” one-liners that are either straw men or just plain dumb. Seriously, say something of substance. I’m sick of having to scroll through your garbage posts.
Posted by: Yo La Tengo at February 24, 2009 4:22 PM
So are you going to make possession of condoms a crime? I mean we’ve gone from “every sperm is sacred” to “every egg is human”? Criminalizing the pill? Or criminalizing menstruation?
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No. I think we can use the existing laws on homicide. Usually when you hire a hit man to kill someone, the bag man is pretty much as guilty as the trigger man.
The proscutor analyzes the facts of the case and applies the appropriate law and then prepares his case. If the elements are there to support a conviction for a capital crime then that is the charge he will bring. He will only charge what he has the evidence to prove.
Somehow I do not see a prosecutor bringing a homicide charge for killing a sperm or an ova. Those acts are not illegal nor have they ever been nor do I believe they ever will be.
In most states, the death sentence is a jury question. If the evidence is there to satisfy all the elements required to bring in a guilty verdict for capital murder, then the jury also decides whether or not the death penalty should be applied.
The threat of imprisonment or death deters most reasonable people from committing criminal acts, though there is always the exception. That why we have ‘old sparky’.
I am with Edith Bunker from ‘All In The Family’ fame. When asked to give her opinion on capital punishment, she replied, “I am OK with it as long as it is not too severe.”
yor bro ken
I have it on good authority that the ND Catholic Conference and ND Right to Life do NOT support the ND personhood legislation but are maintaining a neutral stance.
What gives? I’m not sure I understand why they’d not support it.
Bystander @ 8:05,
Don’t worry about the Pope becoming the “absolute ruler of the U.S”. He has a higher calling.
Why feel so threatened by the Catholic Church anyways? Personhood is about natural law, not religious law.
Janet, “personhood” is aimed at establishing a theocracy, making the policies of a church the law of the land, and most Catholics, don’t want that.
what are you talking about? Personhood is not a religious issue. I believe we have advances in technology that have shown us a human being in the womb, not tissue or a cluster of cells?
Bystander,
I’m asking why YOU are so threatened by the Catholic Church, not how “most Catholics” (if it is even possible to ascertain who comprises that group) feel.
Janet, hon, when one has no set beliefs but instead goes with the flavor of the day relative morality bs, it is very threatening to be confronted with the mere existence of people who happen to believe in the concepts of right and wrong. Those people don’t even have to do anything to try to change minds or hearts… they merely have to exist in order to raise the blood pressure and ire of the relative moralists.
Elisabeth,
Exactly.
I’m convinced that we all need to believe in something (deep down inside) which is why relativists created their moral compasses. Today, their North is Green.
I’ve always been amused (bemused? Not sure which word choice is most accurate… I need to use them both, I think) by those who get upset with the head of the Catholic church stating Catholic doctrine. Hello…. McFly? I mean, c’mon. Does anybody really expect the Pope to come out and say, “Everybody just do whatever you want, we don’t care anymore?”
No… the head of the Catholic church is careful to strictly hold to the teachings of the Catholic church throughout time. Good. I just wish our legislators would stay as true to the purposes and intents of the U.S. Constitution. If the federal government stuck to only handling those issues delegated to it by the Constitution, and each branch stuck to their own job (Now we have jurists legislating from the bench, executive branch writing law and … seriously, what’s left for the legislative branch that is all theirs anymore????)
I’m not Catholic. But I would be so disappointed if the Catholic church caved in to popular opinion and ceased being Catholic. Isn’t that the point of being… I don’t know…. Catholic????
Elizabeth,
You get an A for your understanding of the role of the Pope. Thank you for your comments! They are so refreshing!
Posted by: LizFromNebraska “Personhood is not a religious issue. I believe we have advances in technology that have shown us a human being in the womb, not tissue or a cluster of cells?”
Liz, thanks for being in the fight! Here’s more to consider: technology and the laws of science don’t speak authoritatively on right and wrong. In fact, the laws of science do not even use the terms right and wrong. It is only from a Religion (not from atoms and molecules) that we derive human right: they come from our Creator, not from the delivery doctor at the hospital, but at the moment of each individual’s creation! (YLT, a sperm has 23 chromosomes, thus 23 + 23 = 1). Liz, technology and science can tell you how to lynch a black man, but not that doing so is evil. Only God and the conscience he wrote on your spirit can tell you that. Plants have a body; according to the Bible, animals have a body and soul, and people have a body, soul and spirit. Science does a poor job comprehending these matters.
-Bob Enyart, KGOV.com
Bobby Bambino – Taking things to its logical or illogical conclusion is stock in trade of this board. How else can you explain the anti-choice contention that a fetus is the same as a child? How else can you explain the catholic position against condoms or birth control? How else can you explain the fascination and promotion of people like the Duggars and inadvertanly Nadya Suleman?
It’s all an excercize in hyperbole and drama to whip up public support for the censure of private actions.