Saturday, February 11, 2012

Why the personhood movement is wrong

Conservative 'pro-life' groups in the USA have always been looking for ways to overturn Roe v Wade and ban abortions of any form performed for any reason ever since the ruling was handed down, and their latest high profile strategy has been the attempted introduction of so called 'personhood' amendments in several US states. These amendments usually center around one principle - define life as beginning at fertilization, thereby granting full human rights to the newly formed combination of two gametes. Amendments that attempted this have already been rejected by voters in Colorado, Alaska and Mississippi. And this is a good thing. In fact, a very good thing. For one very good reason:

Defining human life as beginning at fertilization is arbitrary and stupid.

However, the national GOP would love to introduce a federal level personhood amendment - and this act of religious dogma dressed up as human rights concern needs to be fought and finally, utterly, defeated.