How an anti-abortion push to redefine ‘person’ could hurt women’s rights

I’m incredibly grateful that I did not have to decide whether to end my pregnancy — and that I had access to doctors who respected me, a family that supported me, and New York state laws that stayed out of my personal and medical decisions. Too many women aren’t as fortunate, and this onslaught of anti-choice legislation and personhood initiatives ignores the reality of their lives and the nuances of their health needs. It’s possible that, faced with my nightmare scenario in a “personhood” world, I wouldn’t have even been allowed a choice.

The people who attack reproductive rights are turning a blind eye to the impossible choices families have to make together, instead callously insisting that it’s lawmakers who know what’s best for women, not women themselves.

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Personhood advocates say women’s rights would not be curtailed by their efforts. In response to the outcry over the Mississippi ballot measure, which would effectively ban abortion, even in cases of rape, Personhood USA spokeswoman and lawyer Rebecca Kiessling has frequently said, “A baby is not the worst thing that could ever happen to a rape victim — an abortion is.” An information sheet from Yes on 26, the main organization fighting for personhood in Mississippi, aimed at addressing pro-abortion-rights criticisms of the measure, assures voters that the amendment would not ban birth control and would not make miscarriage a crime.

In 2005, a Virginia lawmaker proposed a bill that would require women who had a miscarriage to report it to police within 12 hours or face up to a year in jail. This year, a bill proposed in Georgia would require that all miscarriages be investigated by law enforcement to make sure that they weren’t caused by “human involvement.”

The slippery slope is getting slicker and slicker. Federal guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention created in 2006 tell all women of childbearing years to treat themselves as pre-pregnant — taking folic acid, refraining from smoking and maintaining a healthy weight.

How long will it be before pregnant women are arrested for not taking their prenatal vitamins or for not exercising enough — or too much?

This is not the kind of “Handmaid’s Tale” dystopia I want my daughter to grow up in, and I don’t believe it’s what the majority of Americans want, either. According to the latest Gallup polling on abortion, though the percentages of Americans who identify as “pro-choice” and “pro-life” are about the same, only 20 percent want abortion to be illegal under all circumstances.

The abortion-rights movement — from large organizations to bloggers and students — needs to start talking about personhood and other anti-abortion strategies in a way that includes all pregnant women, even those who don’t want abortions. Because it’s all pregnant women who are in danger.

The logo for Personhood USA, a leading organization behind the measures, echoes that idea. It shows what looks like a full-term fetus curled up in a map of the United States, which acts as its womb. The woman is conspicuously absent. Personhood advocates are interested in only one kind of “person.”

outlook@washpost.com

Jessica Valenti is the founder of Feministing.com and the author of “The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession With Virginity Is Hurting Young Women.”

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