“It’s an embryo,” said Walter Hoye, a California pastor and president of the Issues 4 Life Foundation. “Calling it a fertilized egg is dehumanizing.”
Personhood efforts are underway in more than a dozen states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and Ohio. The movement has grown recently with the help of passionate young antiabortion advocates and more seasoned activists who have grown disenchanted with the pace of change.
They view their approach as an answer to the Roe decision, which concluded that the term “person” does not apply to the unborn under the 14th Amendment. “If this suggestion of personhood is established,” Justice Harry Blackmun wrote in the opinion, the abortion rights advocate’s case “collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment.”
“I see that as a directive from the court that says, look, if you want to protect unborn children, you’d better recognize them as persons in the full legal sense,” said Rebecca Kiessling, spokeswoman for Personhood USA. Kiessling, a lawyer, is the product of rape; her mother tried twice to obtain back-alley abortions before giving her daughter up for adoption, said Kiessling, who has become a sought-after speaker since writing a pamphlet called “Conceived in Rape.”
Questions and concerns
Many legal experts say that the activists are misinterpreting Blackmun’s language and that the Mississippi measure probably would not stand up in court. If upheld, it could open a host of sticky questions, including whether a woman with cancer would be prevented from receiving chemotherapy if it could kill her fetus.
Th experts say the legal approach could backfire, forcing the courts into making a decision unfavorable to antiabortion activists. That concern has led to skepticism from more established antiabortion groups, including the Eagle Forum, which opposed Colorado’s personhood initiative last year, warning that “its vague language would enable more mischief by judges.”
National medical groups have opposed personhood efforts, saying that they ignore the fact that, left to nature, a large number of fertilized eggs do not survive to birth. Such measures could limit access to birth-control measures that prevent embryos from implanting in a woman’s uterus, such as intrauterine devices. They could restrict in-vitro fertilization, which typically involves fertilizing several eggs and then using just one or two.
Personhood supporters say that such concerns have been drummed up by opponents and that common sense will prevail in situations like the example of the woman with cancer. The Mississippi measure does not deal with the question of enforcement, and if the amendment is adopted, the courts might decide that the state’s homicide laws cannot apply, Kiessling said.
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