There's a growing threat to reproductive rights and freedom in the United States, and it's a group who are pushing to extend personhood rights to fetuses (check out the creepy video). They are trying to pass legislation that gives fetuses full rights. That means that a crime could be committed against, or by, a fetus and it deserves all due process of the law. Personhood USA is arguing that our government is denying a group of people, fetuses, their rights in our country.While they are extremely concerned with giving rights to fetuses, they do not care at all about taking away womens' rights. This legislation completely denies women the right to choose and the right to have control over her own body. It is insulting to women, who are capable of making decisions, and deservedly have the agency to make a choice in our country.
I do not think that this group, or any group, should get off uncriticized for spouting claims of love and freedom for all when they are working tirelessly to put women into a second-class position based on their biological capacity. Women are not just vessels for children, we are people with our own lives, and by extending personhood rights to fetuses our governement would be reversing decades of legislative and social change that has worked to destroy the biological essentialism that has been so entrenched in our society.
I would also like to point out, that I am certainly not the only person with this opinion. The vote on Colorado's Prop. 48, which would have extended personhood rights, was defeated with 72% voting against the proposition. That's a whole lot of people who also think that this is an extreme measure.
However, despite this seemingly overwhelming opposition, the "personhood" movement still believes that they can get this legislation passed. They believe in it so much that they feel the need to not follow the letter of the law. If I were in their shoes, the fact that I need to falsify information and spread lies in order to get try to convince people to support me would indicate that 1) people don't agree with and 2) my position makes no sense.
You really have to wonder, how much resistance and failure you have to face before you stop?
Photo courtesy www.flickr/djcurly
1 comment:
Wow, Ellen. Thanks for posting this; I really did not know much about it. I mean, I knew there were people out there committed to this "personhood" thing, but I had no idea that they found enough people to ascribe to this idea that they created an organization... They use some pretty scary tactics in that video. If the person watching the video does not have any preconceptions about "personhood," then he or she may very well be swayed to follow this flawed logic...
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