So in North Dakota, as I mentioned in passing a few hours ago, the legislature has decided to define eggs as people.
North Dakota lawmakers voted on Friday afternoon to pass a “personhood” abortion ban, which would endow fertilized eggs with all the rights of U.S. citizens and effectively outlaw abortion. The measure, which passed the Senate last month, passed the House by a 57-35 vote and now heads to a ballot vote, likely in the next November election.
The fertilized eggs have all the rights of US citizens with the result that their mothers don’t. All rights for the egg, no rights for the woman the egg is in. The egg is everything the woman is nothing. Some twelve or thirteen years down the line, that egg herself might get pregnant, and goodbye her rights – she’ll be nostalgic for the time when she was just a fertilized egg and had all the rights of a citizen.
A personhood ban could have far-reaching consequences even beyond abortion care, since it will charge doctors who damage embryos with criminal negligence. Doctors in the state say it will also prevent them from performing in vitro fertilization, and some medical professionals have vowed to leave the state if it is signed into law.
Fewer but better North Dakotans.
Lawmakers endorsed a fourth anti-abortion bill last week that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on the disputed premise that fetuses feel pain at that point. The governor stopped short of saying he would sign it, but said: “I’ve already signed three bills. Draw your own conclusion.”
The signed measures, which take effect Aug. 1, are fueled in part by an attempt to close the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo — the state’s only abortion clinic.
Or they could just send all pregnant women to prison.
The ad for this page is trying to sell me some scam-a-riffic fertility supplement. Asking if I’m “trying to conceive” on a post about further limitations to abortion access in this country just adds to the horror of it all.
I don’t quite see why any of these bills should mean limits on legal abortion access: my neighbour has a heartbeat and he is not legally entitled to use my body. I think granting human rights to embryos and fetuses is ridiculous in the extreme, but even if theocratic legislators do pass a law that says every egg is a person, there is no human right to use another person’s body against her will!
Does this mean that a person’s citizenship will be determined by place of conception rather than birth?
So in North Dakota, can a woman sue a fetus for damages?
I apologise if my previous comment comes across as minimising and flip in the face of a serious subject.
Question: does this mean chicken eggs are full-fledged chickens? Because that would complicate the poultry industry something fierce…
I thought it was a fair question, Anthony. Loss of income due to being pregnant? Medical costs? Loss of “consortium” after birth?
Do pregnant women have to pay two fares on buses now? Can they use the carpool lane? So many questions about this ridiculous bill.
Hmm.
“… endow fertilized eggs with all the rights of U.S. citizens…”
Hmm.
“… endow fertilized eggs with all the rights of U.S. citizens…”
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
“… endow fertilized eggs with all the rights of U.S. citizens…”
Okay, there’s got to be some way to cram the Law of Unintended Consequences down the throats of those pro-forced-birth troglodytes. Given that enhancing the health of a mother is highly likely to enhance her unborn fetus’ chances of survival, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that there could be a way to force the sovereign State of North Dakota to choose between their bullshit pretext of Protecting The Innocent Eggs and their true agenda of Stomping On Women One More Time…
All the rights of US citizens? You know what’s next then – concealed carry permits for the unborn!
Women in ND need to start sending in their used pads/tampons to government offices. A decent percentage of embryos never implant so there might be unidentified human remains there to be processed. A full citizen with no birth certificate found dead would be a high priority for the ME right?
Of course, these scientific ignoramuses apparently are unaware of the fact that more then 1/2 of all fertilized eggs fail to implant and are expelled. Under this law, this would make god the worlds foremost abortionist and most prolific abortionist. Indite god for performing abortions.
If fetuses have all the rights of US citizens, then what about fetuses in the bodies of illegal immigrant women? Normally US citizenship status is granted upon birth in the US.
Come to think of it, can North Dakota award US citizenship? I thought they could only grant North Dakota residency.
Regarding the Law of Unintended Consequences: What free federal medical care is available to young children? Any? I’m thinking of the possibility that maybe if a child dies, is there any way to collect Social Security benefits, even if it’s a one time thing? All those miscarriages are going to get expensive, if so.
Fastlane: Well, nothing from Social Security (those all move down the dependence chain, not up, pretty much). But yeah, there’s got to be lots of ways to make them choke on this if it passes.
Oooh! Every sexually active woman in the state should phone their local law enforcement agency at the end of their period, to say that it’s possible a child is missing. Hell, they should be phoning every day during their period, since ND law mandates reporting within 24 hours. In addition, any woman who suffers a miscarriage is apparently required by law to notify law enforcement within two hours of the event, now.
Source
Oooh, and the burial process is gonna get tricky–I doubt the coroner’s office is gonna appreciate all the calls they’ll get to be examining tampons and pads to see if there’s a ‘corpse’ in them.
I like the cut of Freemage’s jib. Yeah, lots of Missibng Person reports, and lots of calls to the coroner. And every one of those calls should explicitly mention something in the neighborhood of “in accordance with the Full Legal Rights For Fertilized Eggs law”.
That’s got to mean that pregnant women get to vote twice, right?