Consequences Of "Personhood" Bills Would Go Far Beyond Abortion

Recently there have been efforts in several states to legally extend rights to any egg that happens to get fertilized. While this is mainly intended to end abortion, passing “personhood” legislation would be severely harmful for women in more ways than one.

Colorado has defeated personhood amendments twice in the past few years, and similar legislation may be voted on soon in Alabama and Mississippi. The group Personhood USA is hoping to raise that count to nearly half of all states by 2012.

Today NPR talked with members of the group and considered the implications of such legislation. Keith Mason, Personhood USA’s president, said, “We know, without a shadow of a doubt, when human life begins. But our laws have not caught up to what we know.”

Apparently by “we” Mason is referring only to people who share his beliefs, because every medical professional interviewed by NPR says this is absolutely not the case. Dan Grossman, an OB/GYN at UC San Francisco, explains, “The medical community has really been quite clear about when pregnancy begins, and that definition is that pregnancy begins once implantation occurs.” That’s partially because the hormones found in urine only kick in after implantation, so that’s when doctors can detect a pregnancy. Another consideration is that about half of all zygotes don’t make it, even without intervention from selfish and slutty abortion fiends.

We don’t know if the folks at Personhood USA are angry at nature for doing away with all these “people,” but they are against ladies using certain contraceptives to prevent fertilization and implantation. The news that personhood laws could also ban IUDs and birth control pills helped defeat the bills in Colorado. Mason says he doesn’t think declaring that life starts at fertilization would affect contraceptives, but if his medical analysis turns out to be wrong, he’s all for outlawing these types of birth control:

“Certainly women, my wife included, would want to know if the pills they’re taking would kill a unique human individual,” he says. “And I think there’s a lot of misinformation about that, or lack of information. And I think this is another benefit of what we’re doing: We’re raising awareness about these issues.”

Though he probably doesn’t want to raise awareness about what these laws could do to women who have ectopic pregnancies, or other complications. Who really cares if a few women die due to personhood laws? It’s definitely more important to push your personal beliefs and scientifically unfounded views on others than to protect human life.