Nothing is as powerful as showing up:
RICHMOND, Va. — Hundreds of women stood mute, arm-in-arm, forming a human cordon through which legislators walked before Monday’s House and Senate sessions to protest a wave of anti-abortion legislation coursing through Virginia’s General Assembly.
Capitol and state police officers, there to ensure order, estimated the crowd to be at least 1,000, perhaps 1,500 at the noon peak of the protest. The silent demonstration was over bills that would define embryos as humans and criminalize their destruction, require “transvaginal” ultrasounds of women seeking abortions, and cut state aid to poor women seeking abortions.
“So there’s opposition to this measure. So what’s new about that?” said Marshall, the sponsor of the “personhood” legislation that could outlaw all abortions and, critics claim, some forms of contraception in Virginia if the 1973 Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion is reversed. The bill passed the House on a vote of 66-32 and is pending before the Senate Education and Health Committee.
Both chambers have passed legislation that requires women to have a transvaginal ultrasound before undergoing abortions.
Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell, a socially conservative Roman Catholic, has said he will sign the ultrasound bill, but has taken no position on Marshall’s personhood bill, a spokesman said last week.
I’ve read and thought a lot on the personhood bills, and in my opinion no one really has any idea what will happen if one of these is made law. I think the impact would be (potentially) absolutely huge:
1. The life of each human being begins at conception.
2. Unborn children have protectable interests in life, health, and well-being.
3. The natural parents of unborn children have protectable interests in the life, health, and well-being of their unborn child.
4. The laws of this Commonwealth shall be interpreted and construed to acknowledge on behalf of the unborn child at every stage of development all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of this Commonwealth, subject only to the Constitution of the United States and decisional interpretations thereof by the United States Supreme Court and specific provisions to the contrary in the statutes and constitution of this Commonwealth.
5. As used in this section, the term “unborn children” or “unborn child” shall include any unborn child or children or the offspring of human beings from the moment of conception until birth at every stage of biological development.
6. Nothing in this section shall be interpreted as creating a cause of action against a woman for indirectly harming her unborn child by failing to properly care for herself or by failing to follow any particular program of prenatal care.
7. Nothing in this section shall be interpreted as affecting lawful assisted conception.
I’ve tried to take it down to the practical level, and if I think it through redefining “person” is breathtaking in scope. In my state, Ohio, I think the newly defined “person” would have the same set of rights that a child has, because surely the newly defined person isn’t an adult, so I start there. I suppose a state legislature could attempt to narrow the rights of the “person” (remember: at conception):
and specific provisions to the contrary in the statutes and constitution of this Commonwealth.
but I think they’d then end up with two classes of juvenile “persons”, post-conception and post-birth, and that interpretation would then be challenged and also, frankly, unworkable as a practical matter.
If I just mentally tick off the state law that applies to children and apply that “at conception” I’m really down the rabbit hole and into a new world.
My overall feeling regarding the personhood amendments is that “serious conservatives” know that these laws would be absolutely revolutionary, potentially applicable to everything from child support to abuse, neglect and dependency actions, so there’s almost a wink and nod approach to them: allow the radical pro-lifers to go forward, and hope sanity prevails. I am no longer confident sanity will prevail.
I cannot imagine a juvenile court (which is where it would end up in my state, I think, I don’t know where else it would go) determining the “best interests” of a “person” at conception, as against the rights of the parents and the state’s interest.
It is difficult enough to get this right now, and we work with children that are separate and apart from another (adult) person, and the truth is we often don’t get it right. It’s difficult. We fail all the time.
zzyzx
I’m picturing the conservative outcry if a pregnant mother were ordered to quit smoking or eat better in order to protect the fetus. Somehow they’d find a way of blaming liberals.
PurpleGirl
Could a personhood law establish a right to food assistance and/or general cash assistance for the period before birth? I’m thinking along the lines of the child has no means to provide for itself and therefore needs governmental help.
Villago Delenda Est
So, how exactly, in the legal, bright line sense, do we know that conception has occurred?
Have any of these asswipes thought this through? The reason personhood has always begun at birth is because that is a bright line that is empirically observable, therefore subject to the fact based legal system.
The Other Bob
So in Virginia, can one now vote if he/she is 17 years, 3 months old? If you add in the 9 months of pregnancy they are then 18 right?
Also, will Virginia be issuing Conception Certificates, much like Birth Certificates?
Ben Lehman
7) is the real key.
If there was a means of in-vitro fertilization that required, say, killing 100 ten year olds, would they care?
kay
@zzyzx:
Add one more person: the father. The statute reads “natural parents” .
You could have a situation where the father brought the action to make the mother do or not do something. Too, parental rights are fundamental constitutional rights if the state is on the other side, so there could be a parents vs state situation, or a parents vs state + fertilized egg situation. As I said, I find it mind-boggling. Cannot imagine.
Nicole
@zzyzx: Unless the pregnant woman was poor. Then they’d support any sort of restriction. I’m sorry, did I say restriction? I meant punishment.
MattF
Note, towards the end of this article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/virginia-politics/post/hundreds-protest-anti-abortion-bills-on-capitol-square/2012/02/20/gIQAP8NmPR_blog.html
“All bills would be sent to Gov. Bob McDonnell’s desk. He has publicly expressed support for the ultrasound and adoption bills, but on Monday an aide said he would review all measures before deciding whether to sign them.”
This could be non-trivial, because in Virginia the Gov. can alter legislation before signing it.
Edited: Removed (R) from after McDonnell’s name, thankyouwordpress.
c u n d gulag
If every fertilized egg is “sacred” human life, then so must every egg and sperm be.
That means that women who don’t have a child in that month have killed off sacred life.
And men who jack-off are mass murderers who make Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, look like rank amateurs.
Right?
This is “The Handmaid’s Tale” as an instructional manual.
kay
@Villago Delenda Est:
Competing experts?
I don’t know if they’ll be theological, medical, or philosopher-experts though. Maybe all three?
Villago Delenda Est
@zzyzx:
Item 6 would seem to cover that, but then it says “indirectly”. Which means the slut can still be punished for any attempt to abort the post-conception/pre-born “child”.
Time to make retroactive abortion legal for Republican legislators. High time to.
Villago Delenda Est
@kay:
They’ll need to reanimate Solomon to sort all this shit out. He, of course, would be subject to scrutiny if his rulings fail to appease the wowsers of the Virginia legislature.
zzyzx
@Villago Delenda Est: Of course… didn’t read that far. Hey as long as we have the right to eat pringles and smoke tobacco, what more do we need?
RSA
Wow, census takers are going to have to undergo some serious re-training, I think…
rm
Item 3 gives fathers — like, say, perhaps an absent and abusive biological father, or a rapist — a say in whether she has an abortion.
Joseph Nobles
It’s like an ongoing game of SCOTUS chicken. Right wingers keep passing draconian abortion laws, daring the left wingers to sue so that the case can get to the Supreme Court and overturn Roe v. Wade.
I don’t think very many people at all want to live in a world where every miscarriage is investigated as a potential murder/suicide, where every woman is a forced birth baby machine — not even the pious motherfuckers passing the laws. It’s all designed to get the Supremes involved.
jibeaux
@kay: Visitation rights. Every other weekend the fetus has to stay with the dad. If that means the fetus carrier has to come too against her will, oh well.
Question: if the fetus incorporates, does it get double rights?
Linda Featheringill
Conception:
Do we have the technology to determine fertilization? Or do all of those DIY early pregnancy tests depend on hormonal changes upon implantation?
http://www.webmd.com/baby/guide/pregnancy-tests
WebMD describes tests for hormones after implantation but I don’t know when this was written or if there have been further advances.
SenyorDave
If I’m reading this correctly, a woman could still get an abortion by accidently (cue the McCain airquotes) falling down a flight of stairs. So what in hell are all these people complaining about?
terraformer
Boy, these people are really freaking out, aren’t they? They see the oncoming dissolution of their voting base (i.e., death of “old-school” racist white people) and the general sea change in popular culture and attitudes about a host of issues – gay marriage, immigration laws, universal health care – and are just going for broke, hoping that they can hold on to their outdated and dangerous worldview for just a few more years. Crazies.
Villago Delenda Est
Given that this is a radical redefinition of what constitutes a “person”, it’s pretty obvious that those proposing this cannot in any way be called “conservative”, because they’re not defending the status quo, they’re proposing a revolutionary mucking with the law, and in the process opening not just a door, but the gates of Hell itself, to unintended consequences.
This is reckless stupidity on a grand scale, and they haven’t bothered to think it through, except that they’ll be able to punish the damn sluts.
kay
@Villago Delenda Est:
It’s really fascinating, because there is a whole conservative school of thought on parental rights that abhors state interference in those issues. It’s one of those weird intersections/alliances that happen, because liberals and conservatives sometimes agree on limiting state action re: parents. It’s been a fairly productive partnership, because there can be state overreach on parenting issues.
On the whole, the alliance has been good, because it has tempered the lunatics on both sides, re: children’s issues.
But, boy, does this expand state power re: “children”. At conception? The state can now come in at conception?
Mind-blowing, that expansion of state power re: parental rights.
LiteralReddy
So if the fetus causes harm to the mother during pregnancy, do we prosecute for assault?
Oh, I forgot, women are not people in this case.
pat
First, someone should start a campaign to send aspirin to the wife of the legislators who propose/vote for these bills.
Second, I’d like to see a legislator propose that there be a Pre-Birth certificate, with the following requirement: it must include the name of the father (as should all birth certificates), who has responsibility for the costs of prenatal and delivery care. If, upon birth, the mother waives her custodial rights, the responsibility for the child defaults to the father.
Without thinking through every detail, I think it’s time that the discussion of unwanted pregnancy through irresponsible sex include the sexual partner of the mother. The current discussion sounds as if women are doing this all by themselves. And then they
are incapableshould not be allowed to make decisions to address the consequences.PeakVT
At one level I’m tempted to say: do it, Pukes, and reap the consequences. But Virgina’s purposely fucked up election cycle means that even if the general populace is 60/40 against, the actual turnout at the polls in 2013 might still be 50/50, or worse. So I guess Virgina women are depending on McDonnell to do the right thing, or at least get cold feet.
gnomedad
I think “undocumented” mothers should be allowed to vote on behalf of unborn citizens. That’d make things interesting.
scav
This does seem to possibly give the biological father, no matter his legal relationship with the woman, a hell of a lot of influence over her actions. Rapists with control, oh goody. I know divorce can be messy but this appears to complicate matters. It also implicitly demeans all other forms of parenting, step-parents, adoptive parents, foster parents, all second-class sub-standard forms with unpredictable interests. Oh, and why the assumption that biological parents never abuse their off-spring, or is that just a predictable interest?
part 7 has been torn apart elsewhere, in vitro snowflakes are fair game for slaughter.
GVG
I predict conception rate will go down as women will have serious doubts about being pregnant. In fact I predict women immigrating to other states…Yes I know they are trying to restrict the pill too. I still think conception will go down, especially in those able to afford birth control but there is always abstinence. Tough luck guys…
By the way,how many women legislators does VA have? It’s clearly not enough and that needs to be a priority there and in other states too. I know there are men that think of women as people (my dad for instance) but we need more actual women elected, not just liberal men.
Face
What’s to prevent someone from claiming 1 (or more) dependencies on their tax forms, with all the myriad tax breaks, by arguing that they thought they were pregnant? What burden of proof would the IRS demand?
Legalize
Affidavits!
Punchy
Couldn’t illegal immigrants claim their child was concieved in Virginia (regardless of the state/country of delivery), and thus qualify as a US citizen automatically?
Cermet
This is so far right only the skin-head shit eating pig and his stupid ass licking lap dog will vote for this steaming pile of shit when it hits the inferior court.
Roger Moore
@Punchy:
Nope. The 14th Amendment mentions people “born or naturalized” in the United States, not “conceived or naturalized” there. It’s a clever counter argument, though.
Joy
Of course, they couldn’t prove this until birth without another invasive procedure, but I’m assuming if this is life at conception, child support would be in order if the mother was unwed. It could even be back child support to the moment of conception and paid to the mother in a lump sum at the time of birth when paternity was proven.
RalfW
The radicalism of the right, dressed in suits or skirts (of a modest length, of course), ties or makeup, is far, far more out-there than anything I can think of from the left in the 60s.
But the media is lulled by the ‘respectability’ of the messengers.
I’m very thankful for places like the Juice, Esquire, MoJo and such. But there is a dangerous, radical and tallibanical revolution being attempted.
It cannot go unanswered!
kc
Punchy @31, brilliant!
I look forward to reading about the lawsuits by men trying to get court orders preventing pregnant women from moving to another state.
rlrr
@Villago Delenda Est:
Have any of these asswipes thought this through?
No.
gumbo
Two thoughts occur to me regarding “personhood” amendments –
1) With respect to “lawful assisted conception,” this bill says “nothing in this section shall be interpreted as affecting lawful assisted conception,” but reducing embryos down to a manageable two or three happens in virtually all cases of in vitro fertilization. Does this now mean that women who undergo in vitro fertilization have to try to implant all fertilized embryos, and then must carry to term all embryos that implant? If not, then why is “killing” those potential babies okay, but not embryos in other situations?
2) If fetuses have the same rights as fully born people, then does it work the other way around? In other words, a fetus cannot live without the direct support of the mother’s organs. Once a woman gets pregnant, the state is compelling the woman to use her organs to keep the fetus alive. If I am dying of kidney failure, do I then have the right to compel a potential matching donor to donate his or her kidney so that I may live? If not, why not, since the state mandates just this course of action with respect to women and fetuses? In this sense, this new law grants the fetus rights that go well beyond what we “already born” people enjoy.
They really have not thought any of this stuff out at all. And , somehow, that doesn’t surprise me in the least.
Scott
I keep wondering if the people pushing these bills actually realize what a colossal fuckup it would turn into, but keep trying to pass them because watching the ensuing disaster would be sooooo awesome…
Cermet
@Face: Not federal law so IRS will not accept – State law only after signed and it would appear to then apply if not struck down. However, after the woman did not give birth, it would appear an ammended tax would then have to be filed with payment. Not really going to help.
sherparick
It is unfortunate that this movement was not awake and agitating last October and November when the Republicans made State Senator Ed Houck target numero uno to replace him with Teahard Bryce Reeves. Reeves edged Houck by 222 votes out of the approximately 50,000 votes cast. But even 50 thousand votes represented proably a 15% turnout. And all this wonderful legislation now coming out the Virginia General Assembly and Senate to be signed by our “moderate sounding” Governor McDonnell is the result of that 22 vote margin in this partucular State Senate distric which gave Republicans majority control (based on the Lt. Governor’s vote on the tie breaker.
Democracy doesn’t work if people don’t show up or fail to find out how local issues work because they “don’t have the time.”
erot
sherparick
Forgot to paste in my link.
http://www2.dailyprogress.com/news/2011/nov/10/houck-concedes-state-senate-race-vs-reeves-ar-1450919/
kay
@Joy:
I keep thinking about abuse, neglect and dependency, and “protection” of the newly defined person, which is inside another person and that other person has the whole set of rights.
And that’s before we get to fathers, and, in Ohio, if she’s unmarried, grandparents.
scav
Honestly, for a good number of the backers, they probably don’t care if it goes though as it plays well in the primaries/elections to been seen as having made a bold stand(tm) in defense of the unborn oppressed citizen(tm) and having it shot down legally means they can play with this bold stand(tm) for longer. Yes, it’s a cynical use of the fluffy zygotes but hey, it’s not really like it’s a new page from the playbook.
sharl
Kay,
You might be interested in the uploaded audio from the Feb.15 episode of (Virginia) Assembly Conversations, from Virginia Public Radio. If you go to this site, click on Track 2 (for Feb.15), and go to the 4:30 time marker, you’ll hear a specific discussion by the panel that addresses this VA legislation directly (hint: the panelists are NOT fans). The whole conversation runs from approx. 4:30-9:20.
gocart mozart
I the bright side, I think pregnant women will now be allowed to drive in the carpool lane when they are by themselves and take a tax deduction as someone already mentioned. Should the fetus be counted in the census?
How is this constitutional? It clearly outlaws all abortion. Even if the SCOTUS were to overturn Roe, the law has serious vagueness and overbreadth problems. The Tea Party/ Republican Party has become the Mad Hatters Tea Party and we are all Alice now. Were thru the looking glass people.
Punchy
IANAL, but it seems like these two statements cannot co-exist. Unused IVFs are discarded….i.e., murdered according to Virginia. It’s not their well-being to be placed in a dumpster.
Something does not compute.
Bullsmith
I see, so nothing can interfere with your right to lobby elected officials if that mean giving them cash. If however, your rights to free speech and free assembly involve, say getting together to voice your protests to your elected representatives, that there is a crime.
Chris
@RalfW:
Radicalism from a few long haired and shrill students and minorities, versus radicalism from the Very Serious and Respectable people…
OzoneR
@sherparick:
but there’s no difference between the parties you know.
scav
@Punchy: well, somebody computed the dollars and support of the well-off infertile and the business interests designed to support them. 6 is also a song and dance around a different set of clear objections and inserted only to prolong the dance.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Expect the next law passed in VA to be a vaginal probe of every woman who is of childbearing age. First they’ll be checking to see if your cherry has popped to decide if you are promiscuous or not, and if it has, every time you go to the doctor, they’ll have to verify that you’re not pregnant. Otherwise, you could be killing a fetus. And then think about how long you’ll be allowed to work. All that moving around and stress at work could lead to a miscarriage.
jayackroyd
I’m pretty sure the emancipation proclamation makes it illegal for the citizen blastocyst to commandeer the citizen within which the blastocyst resides.
kay
@sharl:
Thanks. I think the personhood amendments should get more attention, and be taken apart, line by line, and treated seriously. If liberals were pushing something this radical, it would be OMG! national news. I don’t really buy the idea that Republicans should get a pass on this stuff, because “it’s never going to pass”.
I have no idea what’s going to pass. I know they’re introducing these amendments all over the country, and all Republicans should have to take responsibility for that, whether it’s a political tactic to pander to the radical Right or not. “Serious” conservatives should have to live with and defend or disown the actions of the radical fringe.
I’m taking them at their word. I don’t have to parse their motives and determine if they’re “serious” or if this is “mainstream”.
Let ordinary Republicans defend these laws, disown these laws, or stop bringing them. Time for them to choose.
Villago Delenda Est
@gocart mozart:
Baby on board
How I adore
That sign in my car’s windowpane
The bounce in my step
Loaded with pep
‘Cause I’m driving in the car pool lane
Call me a square
Friend I don’t care
That little yellow sign can’t be ignored
I’m tellin’ you it’s might nice
Each trip’s a trip to paradise
With my baby on board!
Roger Moore
@Punchy:
The problem is that you’re seeing this as a piece of meaningful legislation that’s intended to be a functional law. If you see it as a political statement, it make a lot more sense. Remember that being struck down in the courts is actually a plus for the legislators who vote for it. On the one hand, it gives them an opportunity to rail against activist judges blocking the will of the people. On the other hand, it keeps the issue alive so they can keep using it as a wedge issue.
cmorenc
@Villago Delenda Est:
There’s enormous irony here for purported adherents of “original intent” strict Constitutional construction (such as Scalia): the common-law legal background within which the original framers of the US Constitution worked, a fetus did not become a “person”, most especially one with any separately protectable rights from the mother, unless and until it was “born alive”. Even states which judicially departed from the “born alive” common-law standard (in the context of what was unlawful homicide) shifted the determination of embryo vs person to when the fetus was viable (which is also BTW the underlying distinction behind the trimester classifications in Roe v Wade).
The constitutional problem here for strict “original intent” constructionists like Scalia who have always disapproved of Roe v Wade is that even if they succeed in getting enough justices to vote to overturn it, this nevertheless doesn’t change the original common-law definitions of when a fetus gains a federal constitutionally protected “life” interest, as they were understood at the time of the Constitutional convention and throughout the succeeding two centuries thereafter. The path they’ll likely take around this problem is to hold that states are free under their own separate constitutional power to more generously define what a protectable “life” interest is under state law. But to do that, they’ll have to first reject the entire notion of a federally protected “privacy” interest which is rooted in the landmark case that preceded Roe V Wade, Griswold v Connecticut, which held that states cannot outlaw individuals right to purchase and use contraceptives due to their fundamental privacy interest. In order to overrule Roe v Wade and uphold these radical new state laws enacted by far-right controlled legislatures, SCOTUS will have to go vastly farther than overruling Roe v Wade itself, and rip up a much larger 50-year foundation of constitutional jurisprudence.
RalfW
@rlrr:
In general, it seems that Republicans don’t actually care how laws or amendments get implemented. We’ve been asking here in MN about the impacts of passing Voter ID (which is a purely partisan bill to create an amendment).
They shrug and say “meh, the next lege will have to implement it.” They don’t have the policy chops to understand the shit ALEC or anyone else sends them.
I get the sense that some MN Republicans know or strongly suspect that the next lege in Minnesota will have at least one Democratic chamber in response to the massive overreach. But they’re letting the tail wag the dog and I don’t get that.
Is it incompetence, cynicism, or the view towards wingnut wellfare when they muster out? All three?
scav
oooo ooo ooo, imagine the Get Out the Pregnancy Drives by each PaRtY(!) before crucial elections so that every fuzzy snowflake can vote.
Pongo
I wondered about the ‘personhood’ crap in reference to the ‘meat in a Petri dish’ research going on in Europe where they are attempting to recreate animal tissue to be used for food without needing a whole animal. Will this tissue–requiring the propagation and reproduction of living cells be protected by personhood statutes? Will they have to define conception as any form of reproduction that does not include biological material generated in a test tube? How will that impact IVF?
Paul in KY
@kay: Video tape. Gotta have the act on tape to show to the local judge or constable.
gocart mozart
#7 is interesting because every in vitro fertilization actually kills several excess embyonic-Americans and they don’t seem to have a problem with that. Perhaps it is because a “test tube” baby is their ideal form of pro-creation. Creating babies without any of that shamefull, orgasmic, sexy fun time: None whatsoever for the woman and only a lonesome jerking off at the clinc for the man.
Paul in KY
@Punchy: I can see you are ahead of the game on this.
RalfW
@cmorenc:
Isn’t that what they’re itching to do on a whole host of matters, but just lack the swing vote?
I don’t think it’s overly alarmist to think that a Republican being Preznit in Jan ’13 would spell a massive disaster to the judiciary.
And by massive I don’t just mean having the most conservative SCOTUS in, what, a century? But dozens and dozens of federal and appellate benches.
I can’t even snark about this shit, its so bad.
kay
@Paul in KY:
I wanted to pit the philosopher against the theologian, because that’s the sort of bizarre courtroom scenario that I enjoy :)
Judges would be slumped over, weeping in frustration and rage. They hate sorting out this stuff now, imagine “at conception”.
scav
Not to mention, there may need to be some mandatory DNA testing of all citizens of conception so the state can properly identify just who the actual birth father is with all those obvious rights. Best to do it in utero and clear things up ASAP. Can’t just assume it’s the husband in this sad sinful world and just think of the job-creation involved in lining up all the potential fathers of certain scarlet women?
Roger Moore
@cmorenc:
Feature, not bug. The people who don’t like Roe don’t like Griswold, either. They’d be happy to throw out any jurisprudence that interferes with the state’s ability to tell people what they can do in their own bedrooms. To them, that isn’t an important freedom, like the ability to spend your money the way you want- unless, of course, you want to spend your money on recreational drugs.
gocart mozart
@Punchy:
Not to nit pick but you are inadvertently using their framing. They are to tiny to be thrown in a dumpster. Flushed down the sink is more like it.
rikryah
I was deeply moved by the pics of the protestors.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
This isn’t about unborn babies. Never has been.
It’s always been about unauthorized sexytime. It’s about prudish gits who can’t stand the idea of others having fun somewhere. It drives them bonkers.
kay
@rikryah:
Me too. Every single one of those people who was photographed is going to take shit from at least one person they know, guaranteed.
It’s easy to say “fight”. It’s harder to do.
marv
I see God’s got some ‘splaining to do to the Virginia legislature about all those spontaneous miscarriages over the 6,000 years of human existence. Like to see that subpoena to testify.
Chris
@gocart mozart:
As a total sci-fi geek I’ve occasionally wondered what their stance would be on human beings who were cloned or artificially created. If that life never began with conception in the Biblical, “natural” sense, does that mean they wouldn’t consider him/her an actual human being?
Jennifer
I’m looking forward to the lawsuits brought by embryos and fetuses against businesses for degrading the environment they’ll inheirit after birth. If they’re people, well then, they can sue.
f space that
Hey GVG @28, the sponsor of the bill in the Virginia House that requires women to be probed before an abortion is a woman from Lynchburg (Falwell’s stomping ground). Her name is Kathy Byron. Simply put, she is a monster. More women ? How about better women.
RedKitten
Of course they’d make an exception for IVF. Look at the demographics. People who have IVF are (usually) white and well-off. I would bet you dollars to donuts that if IVF were free, and used primarily by minorities, you’d see it being illegal under this bill as well.
I swear, I don’t even LIVE in your country, and I want to start carrying a sign saying, “Get the fuck out of my uterus!”
That dangerous schmuck Rick Santorum thinks that states should have the right to outlaw contraception altogether. I mean, WTF?
I swear, you guys aren’t SUPPOSED to be a theocracy, but any time people prevent religion from entering the government and preventing its intrusion into private lives by force – they’re accused of PERSECUTING THE CHRISTIAN MAJORITY!
Kirbster
Could a fertility clinic become its own congressional district if it had enough frozen embryos?
Nemesis
Culture Wars being used by the gop to get voters riled up and to the polls to vote for a guy they dont like.
Why are we surprised by this? Its been the gop SOP for the past 40 years.
Samara Morgan
Personhood bills can only pass in the south.
Colorado has rejected 2 attempts by 70%.
the GOP is becoming more and more a south limited party.
@Jennifer: Vonnegut wrote a short story called The Great Space Fuck, where children could sue their parents at 18, for say….giving them the fugly gene or the fat gene….
it morphed into a form of birth control.
Yutsano
@Nemesis: It’s the story of a party that’s out of new ideas. So they go to the well of cultural and social issues that drum up their base via tribal identifiers. They literally have nothing else.
Cermet
@cmorenc: When you say ““original intent” strict Constitutional construction” … “such as Scalia” do you really think that steaming pile of shit gives a fuck about that? That vile asswipe voted to overthrow the US Constitution the second he had a chance to install a brain dead (really, are there any other types?) thug as president select. scalia the asswipe and his ass licking dog uncle tom will vote against state rights and orginal intent whenever they can put it too democrats.
slag
I’m hoping this situation is one of those in which taking an idea to its farthest possible conclusion finally demonstrates to all concerned how insanely bad the initial idea was. Not counting on it though.
Xenos
What?
Laws passed later inherently supersede earlier laws if there is a conflict. And any law that violates the state constitution is invalid no matter whether it says so in the statute or not. So this bolded section is surplus verbiage unless it blocks the bill from superseding pre-existing statutes.
Either this is a very well crafted bill that nestles perfectly into the existing statutory definition of personhood or it is a complete mess meant to throw a confusing disaster into the court system for a few years in order to demagogue the issue in the next couple elections. I don’t envy the AAG who has to draft the memos for when this comes around.
SenyorDave
@Villago Delenda Est: Or has Homer Simpson would write:
Baby on Board,
Something, something Burt Ward
See, it practically writes itself
jibeaux
My husband pointed out a week or so ago that every R candidate is on record as supporting personhood amendments. The same type of amendment that failed by what, 20 percentage points in MISSISSIPPI?
jibeaux
@Xenos: Ooh, ooh! Pick me! I know which one!
gocart mozart
I see nothing that would disallow that in this law. If it passes, some clinic should totally argue that.
Xenos
@Chris:
It certainly brings the doctrine of Original Sin up for some questions.
Nutella
@RedKitten:
I made the mistake of reading the comments on a wingnut site recently. Most of them were about the disgusting anti-Christian discrimination by people who object to creationism being taught in public schools. They all called it Creationism as if it were a religion itself. A religion that must be taught in public schools to prove they’re not anti-Christian.
kay
@slag:
“Personhood” gets no serious attention, because the general (elite) consensus is “too crazy to actually happen”.
I think that’s waaaay too easy for Republicans and conservatives.
These are bills that Republicans are putting forth all over the country. Do they support this idea? Have they given any thought to how it would change some very basic legal/parental relationships?
If liberals or Democrats put forth bills that had no chance of passage, say, public financing of all abortions, all liberals and Democrats would be asked about that.
More than “asked”. Republicans and media would be screaming.
If they are going to pander to their base, and let the most radical elements run roughshod over state legislatures, there should be accountability for that recklessness among less radical Republicans.
Hal
Will the Supreme Court uphold a law that requires a invasive and unnecessary procedure like vaginal u/s. It’s one thing to argue a basic u/s or a waiting period (neither of which I agree with) but to require women to actual have a probe inserted into their vagina seems far beyond a more simple abdominal scan.
Ten bucks says the guys who wrote this are closet sexual sadists.
Xenos
@kay:
Holy crap. So the fundamental right of a married couple to the presumption of legitimacy of offspring is being questioned here? A guy can claim to have had an affair with a married woman and to begin paternity proceeding before birth? That does not even begin to pass constitutional muster.
This has got to be one of the most poorly thought-out bills in the history of the human race.
Samara Morgan
@Nutella: but christians in MENA are also “oppressed” because muslims refuse to let them proselytize.
Resulting in No Afghan Bases for you, Uncle Sam.
Samara Morgan
@kay: it gets no attention outside of the South.
fixt.
gocart mozart
@Kirbster:
I don’t see why not. If the law passes, some clinic worker should totally argue that. “Judge, we have 600,000 “people” living in our facility, the fact that I am the only one of voting age is immaterial. We are entitled to congressional representation under the constitution.” says the guy who moved into the storage closet in order to run for congress and win by unanimous vote.
Percysowner
@pat: I personally don’t want a woman’s rapist or her abusive father or boyfriend to have the person her child goes to if she decides to give birth. This rule means that custody automatically goes to whoever fathered the child, regardless of the circumstance.
gocart mozart
@RedKitten:
When facsism comes to America, it will be wearing a sweater vest and acting like a douchebag.
RedKitten
@Hal:
And that’s the whole point.
It’s all about the slut-shaming.
Because you know, we women who have the temerity to have sex but not want a baby out of it, well, we’re supposed to be RESPONSIBLE for that. Take responsibility for yourself, the right-wingers keep saying.
And yet…
And yet, we women are not allowed to take responsibility for our own medical decisions. We’re too fucking stupid to know what an embryo looks like, or what it is. We’re too stupid to know our own minds and to be responsible for our own medical decisions. And we most certainly can’t trust doctors to help us act in our best interests! No-indeedy! So thank goodness we have the wise legislators, with all the medical training of a 16 year old fry cook, who can take that responsibility out of women’s hands and force a doctor to shove an imaging device up their vagina whether they or the doctor want it or not!
And anybody who does not call this sexual assault is a fucking liar.
But, hey. The woman already had sex at least once, so she has forever and in perpetuity given up her right to say what goes into her vagina, right?
Someone who is not a doctor is deciding they have a right to make someone else put something inside inside of a woman. It is rape by proxy, and if I were a doctor, I would be spitting mad at the state usurping my medical discretion like this, and forcing me to betray my patients like that.
Roger Moore
@Kirbster:
So sort of like Cryoburn, but with fetuses rather than corpsicles. A very interesting concept.
pat (the other one)
Exactly, and it has been asked before: WHERE IS THE AMA ON THIS??
THE
An embryo would have to be frozen for 18 years before it gets the vote.
After 35 years it could run for president.
Barry
@PurpleGirl: “Could a personhood law establish a right to food assistance and/or general cash assistance for the period before birth? I’m thinking along the lines of the child has no means to provide for itself and therefore needs governmental help.”
Of course not – that’d be silly!
Barry
@Villago Delenda Est: “So, how exactly, in the legal, bright line sense, do we know that conception has occurred?”
a) The woman’s monthly test is positive.
b) The woman does not take her monthly test.
Jeff Boatright
@Villago Delenda Est:
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
You made a funny!
Roger Moore
@THE:
Sure, but the vote isn’t what matters. Congressional districts are based on total population, not on the number of citizens, qualified voters, or the like. So if frozen blastocysts are people, they should get counted when it comes time for reapportionment. Also, too, can I count my 20 snowflake babies waiting to be implanted as dependents on my federal tax forms?
grandpa john
Sometimes when I am depressed by reading about this crazy shit, I have a fantasy about the democratic party actually waking up to the fact that a few of our former members have pushed and that fact is that elections on the state and local level are as important as the national ones. Anyone remember when the 50 state idea was being promoted? well can anyone now look at the results of sitting on our asses while the republicans have quietly gained local and state control of so many states and now we are reaping the results of our abdication of action to politics except on the national level
Barry
@Roger Moore: “Feature, not bug. The people who don’t like Roe don’t like Griswold, either. They’d be happy to throw out any jurisprudence that interferes with the state’s ability to tell people what they can do in their own bedrooms. To them, that isn’t an important freedom, like the ability to spend your money the way you want- unless, of course, you want to spend your money on recreational drugs.”
There are two clear lessons from the current pile of steaming garbage:
1) For practical purposes, there is no difference on the right between being against abortion, and also being against contraception, and f*cking around with women in general.
2) The allegedly libertarian punditry is no such thing when it comes down to hopping into bed with the right (e.g., McArdle, Callahan, Cowen).
muddy
@rikryah:
I was as well. I like this kind of protest, it is more shamey toward the pro-rapists. That silence was was just chilling.
Personally I would be much more apt to want to join this sort of demonstration rather than one with marching and catchphrases and signs.
matryoshka
Kay and RalfW and others who fear that sanity will not rule the day, I think your apprehension is well-founded. This is a concerted, organized, well-funded effort to throw extreme legislation out there so that “liberals” and society in general will be forced to compromise, moving ever rightward toward a totalitarian state that they call a Christian nation. As someone said above, this wing of the Republican party sees The Handmaid’s Tale as an instruction manual. Like grandpa john (#106), I hope the Dems at every level wake up, and soon.
shortstop
I didn’t realize that McDonnell’s a Roman Catholic; I thought he was a member of one of the warring tribes of Prot fundies. That puts him right out for Mitt’s VP, duddenit?
matryoshka
@shortstop: Do you mean being RC excludes him, or puts him out there as an option for Mitt’s VP? The tribes of fundies are not so much at war with each other, and they are certainly willing to form strange alliances (with Israel and Opus Dei and huge corporations) to get their agenda enacted.
slag
@kay: Agreed. Beyond which, I’d like people who casually call themselves “pro-life” to have even the remotest clue what that means, in practical–realistic–terms. But they don’t seem to. To them, abortion falls into this hazy “bad” category so, obviously, it should be illegal. Personally, I take issue with a lot of Democrats, including those of the “safe, legal, and rare” stripe, for aiding and abetting this mindset. Yes, abortion is a moral issue. But in practical–realistic–terms that issue is about whether or not a woman has a right to sovereignty over her own body in all circumstances. Not whether a fetus is a person.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I’ll ask again:
Coming soon to Tshirts and bumperstickers. I’ll sub in @##@$$#@ for the h r f. THis shit has got to stop.
shortstop
@matryoshka: Puts him out of the running, I think. Yeah, I’ve commented here (and elsewhere) many times on the fact that fundamentalist Protestants aren’t anywhere near as anti-Catholic as they were, say, 20 years ago, and that people who think they are haven’t caught up with the modern reality of alliances on the religious right.
But having said that, I think Romney is something of a special case since evangelicals and fundies really are put off by his Mormonism. I’ve thought all along that they’d suck it up and vote for him anyway, since whatever he is, he isn’t BLACK!, but the extent of the pushback has made me conclude that Salt Lake City is a bridge too far for many evangelical voters. So I suspect he’s averse to picking a Roman Catholic when he’d shore up his cred with Prot fundies by selecting one of them. On the other hand, Rih Santorum’s greatest fans and the biggest supporters of the USCCB’s heinous behavior are evangelical Prots, not Catholics. So maybe he runs no risk by picking an RC.
matryoshka
@shortstop: Got it. I agree that if Romney gets the nomination, they’ll vote for him and say it’s all part of God’s plan and that there really is nothing scary about the magic underwear after all. They would rather have Rih because he’s the real deal, but they’ll line up behind the Mormon if preacher-daddy tells them to, no matter who he picks for VP.
HelpThe99ers
One question for our friends on the right: how does this law address the issue of prenatal anchor babies?
That is all.
shortstop
@matryoshka:
Well, I’m not sure that all or even most of them will. I’d always thought so, but I’ve been surprised at the number of backs of hands he’s getting from Protestant fundamentalists. They do seem to care about this Mormon thing to a far greater extent than I’d imagined. I think it would be safer for him to pick a Prot fundie. But Rih’s Prot fan base may be evidence that I’m wrong.
ETA: And isn’t pretty much every person being floated as Mitt’s VP a Catholic? Rubio, McDonnell, Sandoval, Martinez?
Gretchen
@SenyorDave:
There was a prosecution – in Indiana? against a woman who fell down some stairs, called the paramedics to get checked out, but at the ER she admitted to a nurse that she had considered abortion because the father had left her and she was afraid of being able to support her children alone. The nurse called the cops, who called the prosecutors.
matryoshka
@shortstop: I have not kept track of potential VP candidates for Mitt, but I have heard Rubio’s name mentioned somewhere. It would definitely be safer for Mitt to pick a fundie (to gather in the reticent Rih supporters), but I don’t think he’ll have to. When it comes down to having a religious nut of any variety vs. Obama, I think they’ll pick the religious nut every time. I hope I’m wrong.
joeyess
It’s like something out of The Handmaid’s Tale.
balthan
@gocart mozart
“Sorry, the Fire Marhsal has rated the maximum occupancy of this building at 135. We’re going to have to shut you down.”
WaterGirl
Okay, so the virginia legislature postponed the vote again today. Did anybody show up to protest today? If not, then I think they will just postpone one day at a time until press attention goes elsewhere, and then vote exactly as they would have otherwise.
These bastards are coming at our democracy from a thousand different directions at once. If even 10%, or 1%, of what they want sticks, we are losing ground. I may have to go rock myself in the corner for awhile.
g
Kewl! If I’m late for my period, I get to take the carpool-lane!
Betsy
@balthan: That deserves a shout-out, really.
fuckwit
WHAT? No morning after pills, for one thing.
Why only 1000 people? Why not every woman, man, and teenager out there protesting their ass off? WHAT THE FUCK PEOPLE?
Jado
This is the same as every other piece of republican legislation – a club to be used to hurt those they don’t like.
Crackhead mother? Jail for both crack AND child endangerment.
Pot smoker? I hope your kids like the people at social services, hippie.
Black? Well, now, darkie, this here is Virginia…and you were speeding while pregnant. That’s gonna be jail time for you…