Anti-Abortion Groups Push To Outlaw Contraceptives By Redefining Personhood - ThinkProgress

[WillyT]

Anti-Abortion Groups Push To Outlaw Contraceptives By Redefining Personhood
By Marie Diamond posted from ThinkProgress
Jun 4, 2011 at 9:30 am

<snip>

A fringe anti-abortion group, Personhood USA, has been startlingly successful at pushing forward legislation across the country that would redefine life as beginning at the moment of fertilization, effectively outlawing contraceptives like birth control pills. Although the medical community has long been in agreement that fertilization does not mark the beginning of a pregnancy — fertilized eggs must first be implanted, and only about half of fertilized eggs actually result in a pregnancy — a growing number of lawmakers are supporting Personhood USA’s efforts to buck medical expertise and legally define life as the moment a sperm meets an egg.

If they succeed in passing such a law — and if such a law survives judicial scrutiny — it could turn common forms of birth control into the legal equivalent of a homicide. While “personhood” laws have always been a transparent attempt to outlaw abortion, the legislation supported by groups like Personhood USA goes much further in trying to assert government control over women’s bodies. These laws would recognize every fertilized egg as an individual and complete human being with full rights, and place millions of women in legal jeopardy. According to 2008 numbers, around 11 million American women use birth control pills and another 2 million use intrauterine devices (IUDs).

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More: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/06/03/235552/personhood-bills-attack-contraception/

:kick:

[Zoeisright]

1. They're not going to succeed. Because that violates the Constitution.

Even though those people think the Constitution is "just a piece of paper." Human beings are those who "have been born".

If those assholes showed 1/100th the compassion for LIVING human beings that they did for blastocysts, this country would be much better off.

[Odin2005]

2. This has been their goal all along.

[kestrel91316]

3. I've been warning about this exact thing for 25 years. People laughed.

They said it was just a scare tactic to get votes.

Well, it's NOT. They are serious. People better wake the hell up.

Their playbooks are Leviticus and The Handmaid's Tale. And they are playing to win.

[kiranon]

7. This has been their purpose all along - taking away women's

right to control their reproductive lives from preventing pregnancy to having an abortion. It's all about control and denying equal rights to women in order to elevate themselves which they could not do any other way.

[bbgrunt]

4. they tell us that the "slippery slope" argument is fallacious. haha

We all saw this coming.

[valerief]

5. When a corporation files Chapter 7, does that mean the person is committing suicide? nt

[Angry Dragon]

6. They then have to change the IRS codes

[ohheckyeah]

8. Maybe if they get more attention

and more success passing this kind of thing the young women will wake up. Even most Christian young women use birth control.

My generation fought this damn battle before and it's time for the next generation to get in the fight.