 |
|
|
|
|
| 9/20/2008 6:00:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | 'No' to
Amdt. 48
Measure is an assault on women’s rights
There are few people on either side of the abortion debate who would argue that a fetus in the final month of pregnancy is not a person. In many, if not most cases, that fetus would survive just fine outside of its mother's womb, making termination of a pregnancy at such a late stage a troubling notion that should be reserved for only the most extreme cases.
At the other end of the spectrum the situation is equally clear. Absent a prior explanation, no one looking through a microscope at a just-fertilized egg would recognize it as anything like a human being.
Nonetheless, a proposed amendment to the Colorado Constitution - Amendment 48 - would define as a person "any human being from the moment of fertilization." It is a cynical and dangerous attempt to inject a particular religious view into the state Constitution and deserves to be rejected.
Backers of Amendment 48 make no attempt to disguise the fact that it would ban all abortions. Less discussed is the fact that it would also effectively criminalize several forms of contraception. Beyond that, it would reduce the status of women to no more than partners with their constitutionally protected eggs, which would have untold legal consequences.
As defined in Amendment 48, a fertilized egg would enjoy all the rights guaranteed any individual by the state Constitution. That includes equality, justice and due process of law. Those are, of course, important protections for citizens of the state, but extending them to a fertilized egg goes way too far - to the very real potential detriment of women's rights.
The belief systems through which individuals define when life begins or ends are as widespread and varying as the individuals themselves. Religious doctrine, scientific evidence, or karmic credo notwithstanding, however, there is no argument that a pregnant woman is a person. Outside certain theologies, however, there is no reason to think that the fertilized egg she may not even know she is carrying qualifies.
Barring that certainty, it is extremely dangerous to extend the same rights to a cell as those the mother has. Doing so raises insoluble ethical and practical questions that would put women at great risk - and could conceivably force them into an adversarial relationship with the embryos they carry.
If a fertilized egg had the same rights as any fully developed person, and yet the former relies on the latter for survival - as is the case for embryos through the majority of the human gestational period - whose rights take precedence if a woman either desires or requires an abortion? What happens if a woman's life is at risk, and ending the pregnancy is the only way of saving it? What if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest?
And then there is the broader question of such birth control methods as IUDs or the "morning after pill," both of which work by preventing implantation - not fertilization. Would those methods be outlawed in the name of equal protection for the fertilized eggs they would harm?
Stem cell research would seem to be out, but what about in-vitro fertilization? Could an advocate for the fertilized egg sue the mother for preventing its implantation, or worse, have her arrested for ending a life?
These and other questions that Amendment 48, if approved, would raise illustrate the fact that a fertilized egg is no more a person than a fertilized hen's egg is a chicken. There is much distance to travel between fertilization and birth, in terms of biological development and in the accrual of rights bestowed upon the human being that may eventually be born.
In the meantime, there undeniably exists a woman who must make choices about her body and the life that grows within it. Those can be painful choices, to be sure, but they are hers - and no other person's.
Vote "no" on Amendment 48.
|
Article Comment Submission Form
|
|
|
|
|
