Pro-life “personhood” activism
Newsweek reports on the “personhood movement” within the pro-life community:
The idea that life begins at conception has always been at the center of anti-abortion-rights ideology but rarely pursued as a legislative goal. Instead, activists set their sights on smaller, more obtainable restrictions on abortion, such as requiring ultrasounds or parental consent for minors. The personhood amendment can be understood as a backlash to that approach. “We’re saying let’s get down to business,” says Cal Zastrow, cofounder of Personhood USA. “We don’t want restrictions. We want to abolish the murder of children, and a personhood amendment does that.” The rise of personhood as a political strategy reflects a rising frustration among activists, who say the incremental approach has done little to reduce abortions in the United States.




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back to top26 Comments to “Pro-life “personhood” activism”
It has failed here in CO and it will fail again nexts year.
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Mark one up for the “will of the people” eh, Roy?
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Not the unborn or partially-born people.
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the way to stop the killing of babies, it must be through education
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Again, I don’t understand the obsession with this topic, given all the evils and cruelties of the world. Though I do suspect it is displacement. Many people’s lives have been sadly touched by miscarriages and other lost babies. For devout believers, it is unthinkable to rail against God, so one can displace anger and grief by railing abortionists.
I am a cynical pragmatists, so I believe in giving people as much reason as possible not to have abortions. Most people here seem to be posturers, so much of what they do is post comments railing against abortion.
If you try to implement the proposal here, you will probably make yourself even more irrelevant to the political process than you are now. Be my guest.
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Random:
“…all the evils and cruelties of the world.” — Of which this is one. A big one.
Of course, as I recently said to you, I can understand why you don’t care too much about this issue. In fact, I don’t understand why you care as much as you do, or at least why the fact that you still care about genocide and murder, even given your professed worldview, doesn’t clue you in to the existence of an ultimate Creator and standard of morality.
Do try to understand, though, that we do care about morality, and have a reason to care about others. (They’re God’s creations as much as we are.) Life is important to us, and the unjust taking of life is a huge sin.
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Random – perhaps the reason is that it is the only instance in America of legalized homicide. And the victims are helpless. And it occurs over 1,000,000 times per year in America. There is little else that compares to such a phenomenon in present-day America. You might be better able to understand our “obsession” as you term it if you think about what slavery was to 19th century America. Millions of enslaved human beings, with no rights, exploited. There were other political issues that were joined during that era, and some passionately, but only slavery prompted a bloody civil war. Does that help?
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GOOD ONE Buzzy!
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I’m convinced the ‘personhood’ approach is the proper one.
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Thanks, Scott, for featuring the Newsweek article. I especially liked the fact that Newsweek gave a voice to moderate pro-life groups who oppose this type of legislation.
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Since the so-called “failure” in Colorado, 32 states have picked up the ball
and run with Personhood for pre-born babies!
After nearly 40 years of “regulating” child killing, the country is ready to
admit, our lives all began when sperm and egg met.
Babies in the womb deserve legal protection from the beginning of their biological
development.
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Leslieforlife – 11
Welcome to the blog – I haven’t seen you post before.
You are right – glad to see another standing for our most precious infants.
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It is just as easy for a nihilist to be good as to be bad.
Over the history of Christianity, many Christians were good and many burned people at the stake and drowned them and so on. Sanctimonious claims of moral superiority don’t hold up all that well over the entire historical record.
Attacking those who disagree with you is a clever tactic, but doesn’t hold up as well as you think it does.
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Blah, blah, blah.
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Now, Random, I hope you weren’t talking about me.
Though it seems you must be, since Buzzy didn’t mention your views at all.
The thread: I hope this does not drive people away. Unfortunately, many of the sheeple are “moderates” on the issue. I think someone can only be a “moderate” on an issue like abortion if they purposefully refuse to think about it at all, but there you go.
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Leslie,
I think that you mean that anti-abortion activists in 40 states have taken up such initiatives. The “state” is not doing it. And yes, I’d call Colorado voters’ rejection of this bill by a 3-to-1 margin a failure. If such laws cannot be passed in Colorado, where Focus on the Family has its seat of power, can they pass anywhere?
And if any such laws pass, do you plan on outlawing birth-control pills? After all, they act as an abortifacient some portion of the time.
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RN, 13–”Good”? “Bad”? What does a nihlist mean by these words? What is the source of their definition? How can a nihlist be either?
Christians do have a standard by which to define good and bad–even to debate the definition and its application in a context.
There is no question that much evil has been done in the name of Christianity. Unless there is evidence that someone in particular who is posting here is complicit in that, it has no bearing on the discussion.
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Most people know that a blatsocyst or embryo isn’t a baby. Saying so over and over doesn’t make it true. Of course the argument for personhood is much stronger for late term fetuses, but in my opinion, this only strengthens the case for easy access to contraceptives and first trimester abortions.
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#13, Last sentence is speaking about his own experience.
#18: Saying over and over again that a human embryo isn’t a baby doesn’t make it so. It isn’t a horse, a mouse, a bird and etc. is it?
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It isn’t a horse, a mouse, a bird and etc. is it?
The embryo of a human early in its development is much more like the embryo of a horse, mouse, or bird, at a similar stage of development, than it is an actual human baby.
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shamelessly paraphrasing folks much wiser than I,
“human embryos look very much like we did when we were that age.”
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leslieforlife 11.03.09 AT 9:32 PM
Since the so-called “failure” in Colorado, 32 states have picked up the ball
and run with Personhood for pre-born babies!
After nearly 40 years of “regulating” child killing, the country is ready to
admit, our lives all began when sperm and egg met.
Babies in the womb deserve legal protection from the beginning of their biological
development.
–
It will not pass. It failed here in Colorado. The only way to stop the killing of babies is not through laws. It is through education.
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Personhood doesn’t begin until birth, because it requires mental development in social relationship.
It’s true that a human embryo is a unique, living “human”, but then so was ardipithecus ramidus, and that was a creature we would put in a zoo.
The “personhood movement” is finally addressing the core problem with the movement to criminalize abortion, which is that people have natural sentiments and protective instincts toward the fetus, but people don’t believe that abortion is murder. That’s because, fundamentally, they don’t believe the fetus is a person. The genetic identity of the human fetus doesn’t establish personhood.
Unless as a supporter of the death penalty you’re willing to execute a woman for abortion, it’s deceitful and wicked to promote the “personhood” sentimentality. Such a misconstrual damages the real “personhood” as a valuable social construct. And I don’t think it will work.
The “personhood movement” won’t get anywhere by just declaring the concept of personhood. It’s got to describe the phenomenal and complex features of personhood and show how they are present in an emryo — an impossible task.
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I’m sure NewseveryotherWeek is very interested in pushing this futile movement.
the incremental approach has done little to reduce abortions in the United States
This is not an argument. It does not prove that their approach would do any better, if an amendment were even possible which it is not. A lot more minds must be changed before such an act could be attempted.
Reverse Roe and let the states decide. Then perhaps the issues will be discussed in the open at a grass roots level where they ought to have been in the first place.
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let the states decide
That sentiment led to the founding of a slave republic. What if the abolitionists had not rejected it? Issues of life and death are ethical matters, and they’re universal. If we allow that a state may decide whether or not to criminalize abortion, then you are conceding that abortion really is a choice. Murder is murder because it’s murder everywhere and always. Ethical imperatives require criminalization everywhere or nowhere. The realities of the jury system require it, too.
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then you are conceding that abortion really is a choice
No, I’m merely conceding that it is an issue currently in debate, which I think is obvious.
Ethical imperatives require criminalization everywhere or nowhere
Yes, but getting there is a long process.
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