Consequences of Granting Legal Status to a Fertilized Human Egg
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-10-31/consequences-granting-legal-status-fertilized-human-egg
![A June 6, 2011 file photo shows "Personhood" supporters gathering at a prayer rally at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., to concentrate their efforts to get a proposed "personhood" constitutional amendment offered to voters. The amendment offers a definition of a person not now found in the Mississippi Constitution. - (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)](http://thedianerehmshow.org/sites/thedianerehmshow.org/files/imagecache/620xH/images/headline/111031_righttolife.jpg "A June 6, 2011 file photo shows "Personhood" supporters gathering at a prayer rally at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., to concentrate their efforts to get a proposed "personhood" constitutional amendment offered to voters. The amendment offers a definition of a person not now found in the Mississippi Constitution. - (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)")
A June 6, 2011 file photo shows "Personhood" supporters gathering at a prayer rally at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., to concentrate their efforts to get a proposed "personhood" constitutional amendment offered to voters. The amendment offers a definition of a person not now found in the Mississippi Constitution.
(AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)
Mississippi will ask voters next week to decide whether to give legal status to fertilized human eggs. If the ballot measure is approved, abortion would become tantamount to murder. And in vitro fertility clinics and popular methods of birth control could be outlawed. Many observers deem it one of the gravest assaults on women's reproductive rights in decades. Similar efforts to redefine "personhood" are in the works in several states. Colorado voters twice defeated personhood initiatives recently. But many expect the Mississippi measure to pass. We'll talk about the latest tactics in the battle against abortion.
Guests
Robert Destro
professor of law; director, Interdisciplinary Program in Law & Religion Columbus School of Law, The Catholic University of America.
Jon Fasman
Atlanta correspondent for the Economist.
Suzanne Novak
senior staff attorney, Center for Reproductive Rights.
Walter Hoye
a spokesman for PersonhoodUSA; president of the Issues4Life Foundation and the California Civil Rights Foundation.
Comments
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apologies preparing for 2 NOV no time for other issues-
though closer to life than corporations... with FARer consequences
Are you kidding me! Like we dont have enough problems, and now they want to add this to the list. Come on folks, think this through.
Here we go, folks, while we anxiously await the 7 billionth soul being born on this planet we have lost any touch with reality.
This really could backfire on those nuts who believe women have no right to control the functions in their bodies.
These laws giving legal status to human eggs means every woman now needs to claim 10,000 dependents on her taxes to cover each and every egg that might become a human.
Yes, were my state to enact these laws I would advocate for every woman to claim 10,000 dependents on her taxes and see how it all shakes out.
After all, women have been discriminated against for so long we deserve to have 10,000 dependents added to lower our taxes - that would actually make women assets.
Take advantage of this all you women in these backward states, claim your eggs on your taxes beginning this coming year. Get out those ink pens and add your 10,000 eggs as dependents right now!
The phrase, "pro-life" is one of my pet peeves, as it seems to refer more often than not exclusively to one species, Homo sapiens, at only the gestational stage of development.
Do "pro-life" agitators show this much concern for the rest of Creation? Are they organizing to make sure that parents have fair chances to raise their children under ausspicious circumstances? Under this law, will polluters also be subject to murder charges if they fatally injure or mutate zygotes, fetuses or actual live children?
I don't mean to cast aspersions, but I'm guessing most of these people merely object to the notion of nonprocreational sex and want to make that as inconvenient and dangerous as possible. In my experience, most of the "pro-life" crowd also favors censorship, derides environmentalism and opposes efforts of organized labor to improve conditions for working people. The efforts of these kinds of people to eradicate sex education, contraception and safe abortions comprise one of the greatest sources of misery in our modern world. With other species going extinct on a daily basis, is seven billion humans on the planet enough for them?
It's certainly important to recognize the potential for human life (and other forms as well) as precious, but to refuse to differentiate between a viable being and the potential for life seems dishonest to me.
I wish these people were as concerned about the existence of children in Mississippi who suffer daily from a lack of food and adequate shelter as they are about embryos.
Why aren't they as concened about the killing of fully developed humans with the chemical injections. To be really pro-life one should be anti killing of human beings at every point in life. No, they applaud war, they applaud the death penalty.
Something is really wrong here.
And what about Viagra? Isn't that taking the hands of God into ours?
How can he talk about civil rights when he's promoting a bill that will take civil rights away from women? This argument smells like a bait and switch, "Oh, we're trying to make everyone a person, and make everyone equal." This isn't bringing equality to the table, it's taking it away. And no one has the right to kill an innocent human being? Tell me the plans they're going to set into motion to provide for the hundreds of thousands of children who will be brought to term? Are they going to set up comprehensive coverage for women and children? I have a sneaking suspicion they will cease to care about that child once it's been delivered.
If this initiative passes it will lay the groundwork for restrictive legislation that will codify the legality of how a woman becomes pregnant and whether or not she can save her own life if necessary. Women will become second class citizens.
This is why I am a "Pro-Condom Catholic!"
If the egg doesn't get fertilized, problem solved!
Plus, it helps with the spread of other diseases.
Also, "natural family planning" touted by Catholic OBGYNs defies their logic
that sex is for reproductive purposes only.
"Doing it" only when you know you WONT get pregnant is completely hypocritical.
So if a mother dies in childbirth, the infant if it survives could be tried for manslaughter?
State agencies are over whelmed by the number of children waiting for placement in loving foster homes.
While abortion is a tragedy in all senses, why don' t anti abortion supporters open their homes to unwanted children who are already on this earth? If their numbers are what they claim, they could empty out the state agencies.
It is so sad to have to listen to such ignorance on your show, however I applaud you for what you do. I would be in the dark without NPR and you. I would like to tell your guest that as a medical professional with over 35 years experience - he and his stance appalls me. I have seen the after effects of unwanted children brought into this world who become abused, neglected, or worse yet - dead. Adoption or keeping a child is not always an answer. You make believe that it is, but from experience - it is not. I do not believe that abortion should be a "birth control" however if someone makes the sound decision to have an abortion to prevent an unwanted birth - then that person should not be criticized or ridiculed. Having been in the spot of having an unwanted pregancy - having to have a child - having to give that child up for adoption - you will NEVER know how that can make you feel. I know that birth control pills, IUDs, the morning after pills, and yes, even abortion is a decision that should be a personal decision, and not one made by the government or ignorant people who want to force their personal and religious views on everyone. Okay - off my soap box for now. Thanks for a sound off.
Do these people who support anti-woman (they say they are pro-life) legislation ever consider taking in an unwanted child?
Do they ever offer to babysit for a single parent to go to work?
Have they ever seen what happens to these unwanted children forced to full term and birth but nobody wants them?
Why should the fruit of the womb have more rights than the woman in who's womb it is growing?
What really surprises me is they have added cloned people in the mix with this.
Again, I say, all you women there in Mississippi remember to claim all 10,000 eggs on you income taxes - you are now assets with your tax deductions.
So, let me get this straight, a fertilized egg is more important than the life of a living breathing woman. And if a woman miscarriaged, then she is not only dealing with the lose of a pregnancy but she can be prosucted for murder now? This is terrible for women, now we are not only second class citizens, but we are even less important than a single cell organism.
A fertilized egg does not complete the process of becoming pregnant. Fertilization occurs most typically in the Fallopian tube and must travel into the uterus and implant there before a pregnancy can continue. Implantation does not occur in all circumstances, in fact may fail a quarter of the time. In addition, there are circumstances in which the fertilized egg does not move on from the tube, a condition called ectopic pregnancy. Ectopic pregnancy is a dangerous situation in which the pregnancy will never successfully go to full term and not treating the ectopic by terminating the pregnancy will likely lead to the death of the woman. This law ignores a reality of medical science, no matter what your political or moral view is on the issue.
Mr. Hoyt seems to have not been prepared for Diane's very clear questions regarding the variety of hypothetical situations; or he wanted to dodge the clear statement of the consequences of his positions.
The prosecution concern is real. But what will defeat this proposition will be tort reform and insurance companies. Currently when a fetus is damaged or dies as a result of a negligent act (car accident, for example), there is no claim for that loss, only for the mother's medical bills. Wow, personal injury litigation will explode with this!
What about an ectopic pregnancy? The motheres life is in severe danger unless the egg is removed?
thank you for your comments...you wrote what I was thinking.
By your guests statements, it suggests that people who investigate child abuse cases could make outrageous charges against parents of born children. And, therefore, should be just left alone. By your guests attempt to make personhood sound outrageous, should we stop investigating child abuse cases? What if a parent really did accidentally push their child down the stairs? Are you actually going to investigate that parent? Put that parent through this heartbreaking investigation? Why not just let families live and raise their children as they see fit? The parents know best how to take care of their children. Leave parents alone. That is what your backward thinking guests are suggesting.
This initiative is not back to the future. This initiative is forward thinking. We are evolving and recognizing that barbaric procedures such as abortion cannot be a part of our human experience as we go forward.
good point.
Please be more careful with your science and wording on this important show. RU486 is not the same as the Morning After Pill. Diane already conflated those 2 and they are very different.
Also, your guest Susanne keeps saying this will be the end of infertility in Mississippi. Wouldn't that be wonderful. In fact, she means to (and should be saying) it would be the end of the treatment of infertility. Huge difference.
I'm not sure who that first guest was but it seems to me if someone wants to make a legal decision that affects something as important as birth control, maybe they should learn what it is first. Birth control does NOT destroy a fetus. It prevents a collection of cells from forming. I am appalled at the proposal of this bill. It seems to me that it's socially acceptable to take rights away as long as those rights once belonged to women.
-Ryan
Greensboro, NC
David in Fort Myers, FL:
By the logic of the personhood supporters it would also seem to be the case that if a woman was required to continue a pregnancy even if possibly detrimental to her health and she died as a result (or even was severely disabled for instance) then the embryo/person could be prosecuted for murder or bodily harm. Comment from guests?
I am a believer in 'every child a wanted child' - what happens to our society when more and more children are born into families that do not want or cannot afford to raise them. This is so unfair to these poor children who did not ask to be born into such circumstances.
This is an extreme law that should not be passed. I would prefer to see energies put into improved education and health care for children, things that would improve our society as a whole (as opposed to damaging it) .
Reproductive choice will still be available to Mississippi women of means because they can travel. As the poorest state in the in the nation, this law simply insures that lowest income women will have even more children they can't afford. The supporters of this law only support person hood, not life, as they will do nothing to support these new humans.
Assuming frozen embryos were given full status as human beings, and that frozen embryos remain viable indefinitely, would those embryos:
1. Receive a social security number
2. Be eligible to vote at age 18
3. Be required to register with the selective service and be subject to any punishment for not registering
4. Be eligible for medicaid or medicare
The man who spoke in favor of this position kept making mistakes in science terms. He kept saying "one celled embryo": an embryo is 2 celled, sperm and egg by definition; the so called abortion pill is NOT the same as morning after contraception either chemically or in use. All this goes to show how ignorant and poorly informed these radical fanatics really are. Please someone call him on these gross errors.
Just Mississippi, let them vote themselves into oblivion. The big bad government will bail them out like every other year...
re: ectopic pregnancies: BINGO!