Pregancy and the HOV Lane
Proponents of a ballot measure that would grant "personhood" to a fertilized egg can move forward with efforts to get their measure on the ballot after the Colorado Supreme Court cleared the way yesterday. As The Denver Post reports:
Opponents of the measure, which would lay the constitutional foundation for making abortion illegal in the state, asked the court to reject the ballot title as misleading to voters.
The court ruled that the measure's wording is clear and meets state requirements in terms of covering a single subject.
The measure, if approved by voters, would extend constitutional protection from the moment of conception with regard to rights of life, liberty, equality of justice and due process of law.
The group pushing the measure, Colorado for Equal Rights, can now begin gathering the 76,000 signatures required to put the issue on the November 2008 ballot.I wrote about this back in July when the proposed ballot measure first started getting attention, and I still have many of those same questions. While the goal of granting "personhood" to a fertilized egg is to ban abortion, if the measure passes, it opens up a whole new set of problems. The question (in jest) that I've heard most in the last few days is: Would a pregnant woman be able to drive in the HOV lane? Yes, it's a joke, but it isn't far from the truth of what makes "personhood" such a problematic idea. If you are going to say that a fertilized egg should have the same rights as the people reading these words, then you can't pick and choose which rights (and laws) go along with it. The National Institute of Reproductive Health asks the question "How much time should she do?" in regards to jail time for women who have abortions. Regardless of your stance on abortion, the question is one that needs to be asked; if we are going to say that a fertilized egg is a human being, then abortion is, quite literally, murder. Does that make abortion a capital crime? In that case, we would come full-circle. Are we willing to kill someone for having an abortion? Now, before we get too carried away, let me say that I don't think this "personhood" ballot measure has much of a chance of succeeding should supporters gather enough signatures to place it on the ballot. Polling has shown that Colorado voters are actually pro-choice by a small margin, and a measure this extreme in its wording would only have a real chance at passing in a heavily pro-life state. Nevertheless, I think it's good that this measure is being introduced because it broadens the debate to a level that it needs to reach. If we're going to say that a fertilized egg has all of the same rights as a grown child, then we can't put our fingers in our ears and yell "la, la, la, la" when people ask the next question. Can you claim a fertilized egg as a dependent on your taxes even if it hasn't been born yet? The list is endless. And so is the discussion.
Comments
Submitted by Severin (not verified) on Wed, 2007-11-21 14:10.
Ok... The main flaw in the entire pro-abortion argument lies in the fact that supports deny the fact that a fetus turns becomes a fully developed human. If you look into any biology book across the world there has to be a section about various species' various stages of growth and development. A digram of the metamorphic cycle of a catterpillar into a butterfly is still labelled as the life cycle as a butterfly. A maggot is accepted as an undeveloped fly. A seed is accepted as an undeveloped rosebush. Why can a fetus not be accepted an an undeveloped human. We all started out encased in a placenta, so why is an unborn infant different from a fully developed adult? The reason we must respect human life from the instant of conception is because at that moment, when sperm fertilizes egg, the entire genetic blueprints and cromosomes and every other scientific label you want to attach to it is lined up for that specific human. If we truly believe that humans are individual and unique, we would know that that uniqueness begins with fertilization. To top this all, pro-abortion minded people who claim they stand for the rights of the individual, really are disregarding an entire party's individuality, that being the unborn party. Not to mention the grotesque ways in which an abortion is performed. An abortion is about as humane to the human persona, as the guillotine was to the French Revolutionaries.
Submitted by Patrick (not verified) on Fri, 2007-11-16 17:03.
Good point about making big decisions and then yelling "la, la, la, la" when it comes to thinking about the ramifications. If human life is not to be respected in the womb, when does it deserve respect? Does a baby covered by someone else's flesh mean less than one exposed to the air? Does a human in any stage of life without a voice deserve to be cared for or should they be exterminated for the sake of convenience? These are weightier questions than HOV lanes and tax exemptions.
