Anti-Abortion Activists Push New, Radical Egg-As-Person Measures

RHRealityCheck.org:

A resurgent movement to place "personhood" measures on state ballots across the nation to ban abortion and comprehensive reproductive care could have far more sweeping implications than the trial balloon Colorado voters soundly defeated last year.

Far from being dissuaded by the 3-to-1 loss from their 2008 campaign to confer zygotes with legal rights, abortion opponents are regrouping with a broader initiative that purports to address life span issues, from conception to death.

Read the whole story: RHRealityCheck.org

Comments

[KatK]

The bill gives personhood to zygotes which are fertilized eggs, not unfertilized eggs. This proposed policy isn't really anything new - it is just an attempt to end abortion from a different direction,

[Smirk]

And outlaw birth control pills, shots, implants, and IUDs.

[reggieb]

I can't make an informed decision on this zygote business until I have delved into the most intimate details of the personal lives of those who are for it and I must also know every intimate detail about their friends and family members too.

[Harbinger08]

If those eggs are legal persons then they should be allowed to open credit card accounts like every other American.

[Caliwoman]

can I take a tax write off for all my eggs?

[TRichards]

WELL, LET'S BE FAIR FOLKS. There is a logic, of sorts, to their equation of an egg to a human being. Those so believing share with an egg the same reasoning ability, the same capacity for empathy, the same level of political awareness, and -- in general -- the same level of consciousness. Therefore, it's no surprise that they make the equation. Truly, for them, the equation is a valid one.

[SarcasticFringehead]

There's a double standard here: Eggs are precious, unborn people, but apparently sperm is not.
Are the sperm cells just disposable non-entities then? I don't think so, after all, they make up half the DNA in a fertilized egg. The sperm are as important as the egg in conception.
No, these religious zealots would never in a million years be able to get men to sign-on to the idea that each one of the 100 million sperm cells they produce every-single-day is a person. It is just be too absurd. Men would laugh in their faces.
With women however, they think they can control them more easily -- and that's the only real difference.

[antifluff]

A fertilized egg is one out of many that is penetrated by one sperm out of more than many. At that point, it is a very, very young human. Why should 'rights' be determined by the age of the human?

[slaxx]

it's not a living thing because it can't surivive on it's own, indepdendent of it's host (the mother).

[confuseddemocrat]

So technically contraceptives will have to be banned because many prevent implantation

[caterpol]

It is NOT a "young human". It's a potential human, due to its DNA, which requires a favorable environment in order to become an independent "person".

A seed is not a flower, the same way an egg is not a human.

[citizensrus]

Stop it. There are people dying everywhere. Start supporting single payer health care. Stop wars. Fund food programs. Support progressive taxation. Quit being such hypocrites.

[antifluff]

If the people supporting these programs thru unrealistic tax burdens fall ill, it all goes away.

[caterpol]

What these folks are really saying is that sex should be illegal, for women only, unless it's for procreation purposes.

Which is why birth control, not Viagra, is on their hit list.

[William1950]

yeah... and no more of that ..."whacking, ummm... off!" .

[thundermummy]

MENSTRUATION IS MURDER!!!!­!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!!!!

Sorry, whacked out there for a minute.

[reggieb]

Bring me some chocolate or don't come home.

[slaxx]

SO IS MALE MASTER.BATION!!!

sorry, it rubbed off on me for a second there, too.

[reggieb]

bring me some chocolate or don't come home

[Smirk]

Need a towel?

[PCSara]

It's a fundamental christian extremist goal to oppress women. Since women are voting, working and running for office, the Pro-Life movement is fervently attempting to demoralize women in other ways. They've got it wrong, though, because it takes remarkable courage for a woman to take full and honest account of her life and decide what is in the manifest best interest of her family - these women are not weak - they deserve our admiration. This is the Pro-Life's hysterical attempt to shame women when it will hurt the most - when these women are making decisions about motherhood. How dare they!!!! It's time for young women to get back out there and speak up for reproductive rights, like our mothers and grandmothers did.

[antifluff]

You are right, women are capable of making decisions. Why should the consequences of those decisions be tort Red?
By ignoring and deceiving women about very, very young humans, you are an accomplis to REDRUM. When she realizes what she did (often years later) where will the supporters be? What can you give her to replace a child that she DEREDRUM? The grief is terriblle, the guilt is worse. Why don't you ever talk about the future of 'afterwards'?

[reggieb]

poppycock

[slaxx]

please get a clue.

[kricka]

Honestly. Do you even know anyone who has had an abortion? Well I do, and ten, even twenty years later, the women I know are still grateful they had the option, and feel as though they made the right choice. Your blanket statement that every woman who gets an abortion will regret it is greatly misinformed.

If you don't want an abortion, then don't get one, but get your nose out of my business!!

[been2there]

Your unspoken assumption is that if she doesn't have an abortion she will be happy about it. This is seldom the case. If she grieves for a lost baby, she grieves. If an unwanted baby is forced on her, both grieve.

[TovSquirrel]

These pro-birthers need to sign up so they can adopt all these unwanted children.

[Hair ShirT]

That's the deal once they are born they become welfare babies, drains to the system, tax burdens, future criminals....etc.

[antifluff]

Many of these children are born, unwanted. Their mothers use them to get a dollar and give very little to these humans.
The children that are being systematically eel lim in ated are from all walks of life. With the availability of birth control available, why add mer der?

[slaxx]

yup. why conservatives don't realize this is beyond me. oh, that's right, they don't really care because they're working to get rid of social welfare programs anyway.

[reggieb]

Well, actually, it's their little republican college kids who are having the abortions.

[zanzig]

Get their names and addresses just as they do to the medical personnel at clinics offering abortion and reproductive care, and start sending them mail requesting their foster care services or adoption of babies.

[Tommygun264]

The next phase in the forced pregnancy movement is revealed: outlaw all birth control.

[TovSquirrel]

Death penalty for adultery, too!

No divorce for any reason whatsoever! Marriage is sacred!

No position but the missionary!

Sex is nasty!

And you better be trying to have a child and not enjoying it one little bit!

G*dd*mn hedonists!

[athenap]

And miscarriage is manslaughter. Where are the pad police to make sure we didn't spontaneously abort an unimplante­d-zygote-a­merican with rights, demmit.

[zanzig]

What "next phase"? From what I read in the article, it is part and parcel of this proposal in Colorado.

[instagladiator]

The Rocky Mountain Spring water sure must have changed since I was last there?

[MissingAmerica]

So many of these people probably weren't around in the pre-Roe v Wade back-alley butcher days, which is probably why they're so hot to bring them back again. What we need to do is focus on real issues that enhance lives, not devastate them.

[antifluff]

With all the methods of birth control available with easy access, this is unrealistic, the butcher days are still in existence, except now it is focused on people with no rights, and no way to escape.

[slaxx]

let me guess, you embryos more than actual people?

[macjon]

.
Where do the pro fetus adicts line up to adopt the left over results from the fertility clinics that are going to be thrown away. They can adopt them, raise them, and rear them at their own expense
..
Pro life is in effect only pro fetus.
.

[Crazycannuck]

I don't think of them as pro anything. I think they are, in essence, "forced birth". It's never really about the outcome of a pregnancy (because as you so astutely point out, no one is lining up to care for any children born of unwanted pregnancies), nor is it about preventing pregnancies, because this same group tends to inexplicably eschew birth control, and of course it's not about the pregnancy itself, because I bet a majority of these folks wouldn't part with a penny to provide quality pre-natal care to anyone. This is about forced birth, period.

[antifluff]

Why do you think people are adopting children from other countries? It is because people want to adopt children. This country makes it very, very hard to adopt, and there are not a lot of children available for adoption.

[useyourbrain]

Next will be rights of sperm and eggs so when guys whack off they are committing a federal crime and when women have their periods and lose and egg, that would be punishable by what?

Sperm rights now!