Turning an egg into a “person”

THE RACE is on to see which group of state legislators can turn back the clock on women's rights first.

Last week, the North Dakota House of Representatives approved, by a 51-to-41 vote, a law giving a woman's fertilized eggs the rights of a human being.

Yes, you read that correctly. If the measure is approved by the North Dakota Senate and signed into law, "any organism with the genome of homo sapiens"--in other words, any fertilized human egg--will be legally considered a "person," protected by rights granted by the North Dakota Constitution and state laws.

Not to be outdone, on February 26, Montana's state Senate passed its own constitutional "personhood" amendment for fertilized eggs in a 26-24 vote. Legislators in Maryland, South Carolina and Alabama also are considering such measures, and anti-choice forces in Oregon and Mississippi are expected to launch drives to put "personhood" measures on the ballots in those states in the near future. A similar ballot measure was defeated in Colorado in November.

Just for a moment, consider what these bills would mean. The second an egg is fertilized--whether in a woman's body or in a petrie dish--it would be entitled to the same legal rights as actual living human beings.

Not surprisingly, these proposed laws are designed as an attack on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision granting women in the U.S. the right to abortion. Some anti-abortion activists believe that Roe contains a "loophole" because the decision, written by then-Justice Harry Blackmun, stated that if the "personhood" of a fetus could be established, then "the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the (14th) Amendment."

The idea, then, of the extreme anti-choice movement, is that if enough states legislate fetuses into "personhood," then Roe would have to be overturned--despite the fact that in his ruling, Blackmun stated definitively that the legal concept of "personhood" should not "include the unborn."

Back when I was an escort at a Planned Parenthood clinic, we used to joke that the motto of the people who showed up each week to harass clinic patients was "Every sperm is sacred."

Looks like that wasn't such a joke after all.

WHAT WOULD these laws mean for women and their partners, if they were to take effect?

According to the North Dakota bill's sponsor, Republican state Rep. Dan Ruby, the law would "very simply defin[e] when life begins, and giv[e] that life some protections under our Constitution--the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

But for the women who would suddenly be forced to become the equivalent of human incubators? Ruby doesn't seem to be concerned about their rights at all.

In practice, such measures would totally outlaw abortion at any stage of pregnancy--whether surgical or induced by the drug RU486. Rape and incest victims would be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term. Fetuses with extreme birth defects and no hope of long-term survival would have to be carried to term.

Women who are emotionally or financially unable to care for a child would be forced into a situation of extreme duress. Emergency birth control (the "morning-after pill")--frequently used by victims of sexual assault or those who have experienced failure of another birth control method--would also likely be off limits.

Beyond that, these laws would also outlaw some common forms of contraception, including intrauterine devices and some forms of birth control pills, which prevent eggs from implanting in a woman's uterus but not necessarily from becoming fertilized.

In vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments also could be outlawed--unless, of course, a woman is willing to be implanted with every single fertilized egg from the petrie dish.

Equally as troubling, such laws raise the specter of whether every single miscarriage (which, according to one study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, is estimated to be as high as 31 percent of all pregnancies) would have to be "investigated." If a woman drank, smoked or took drugs during pregnancy (perhaps before she even knew she was pregnant) and miscarried, could she be charged with reckless endangerment or homicide?

As one woman commented on the Feministe blog regarding a similar measure in Colorado that went down to defeat in November:

I train horses for a living, a high-risk occupation. Say I'm 2.5 months along with an unwanted pregnancy, take a nasty header off a foul-tempered colt, and subsequently miscarry. By engaging in dangerous activities with well-known risks, I have...killed my child.

Are you willing to deprive me of my right to earn a living, to engage in the experiences, projects, and activities that constitute my livelihood...essentially deprive me of my constitutional rights? Because the reality is that the only way the law can protect "life" starting two weeks into the pregnancy is for the law to assume all pre-menopausal women are pregnant at all times, and restrict women accordingly.

And if a woman had an ectopic pregnancy--where a fertilized egg implants in the fallopian tubes--eclampsia, or any other life-threatening condition caused by pregnancy, whose rights would win out? Hers or the fetus? Would the actually existing, living breathing human be forced to put her life on the line for the "person" inside of her--even if it's a blob of cells no bigger that a pea?

If a pregnant woman who is diagnosed with cancer wishes to undergo chemotherapy, whose "pursuit of happiness" comes out on top in that case? The living, breathing woman--or the egg, which may be damaged or killed by the drugs?

Would doctors face prison sentences and fines if they chose to administer life-saving treatment to a pregnant woman that adversely affected the egg? Would a woman who chose her life and health over her egg?

THAT THERE are 77 people anywhere in this country--let alone paid legislators--stupid enough to vote for these bills is troubling.

But more troubling still is what it says about the ideological insanity of the extreme right wing--and the lengths to which it is willing to go to undermine women's right to chose abortion in the U.S.

These "zygotes-are-people-too" bills have been spearheaded by a group known as "Personhood USA"--headed by Keith Mason and Cal Zastrow.

According to the Colorado Independent, Mason used to be known for driving around the building sites of abortion clinics in a large truck plastered with pictures of supposedly aborted fetuses for the anti-choice group "Operation Rescue" before getting involved in the push for a personhood amendment in Colorado (which was defeated 73-27 percent in November's election). He and Zastrow now refer to themselves as "missionaries to the pre-born" and routinely compare abortion to the Holocaust.

While Mason and Zastrow represent an extreme fringe, even among many who consider themselves "pro-life," the truth is that lurking behind their "save the babies" rhetoric is a vicious hypocrisy.

After all, even as they claim to want to save children, the anti-choice right would never think of mandating things like public day care, head start programs, quality public education--or, god forbid, comprehensive sex education and family planning services. (Even Bristol Palin, daughter of anti-choice Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, recently admitted to Fox News' Greta Van Sustern that abstinence is "not realistic at all" for teens. Clearly, seeing as she was carrying her infant son in her arms at the time.)

They want to force women carry pregnancies to term--but once the kids are out, you're on own your own to feed, clothe, shelter or pay for medical care for them. Individual families are forced to shoulder societal burdens.

Thankfully, these anti-choice extremists are out of step with the vast majority of people in the U.S.--in part because most people's real experiences run counter to the right's rhetoric. Although the rate of abortion in the United States has fallen to its lowest level since 1974, slightly more than one in five pregnancies ends in abortion today, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute. About half of American women have experienced an unintended pregnancy, and at current rates, 35 percent will have had an abortion by age 45. According to a 2008 Gallup poll, just 17 percent of those surveyed believed that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances.

That doesn't mean, however, that the right hasn't gained ground.

Today, nearly 90 percent of counties in the U.S. lack an abortion provider, and the right's strategy of chipping away at abortion rights one restriction at a time (with parental notification laws, mandatory waiting periods, and outlawing the misnamed "partial-birth" abortion procedure) has had an impact on the way people--particularly young people--view the question of abortion rights.

Last year, for example, the Los Angeles Times reported that "Pew Research Center polls dating back a decade show that 18- to 29-year-olds are consistently more likely than the general adult population to favor strict limits on abortion." A 2007 Pew survey found 22 percent of young adults support a total ban on abortion, compared with 15 percent of their parents' generation.

Looking specifically at teens, a Gallup survey in 2003 found that 72 percent called abortion morally wrong, and 32 percent believed it should be illegal in all circumstances. Among adults surveyed that year, only 17 percent backed a total ban.

In other words, the generation of women and men who actually had to fight for abortion rights--and saw what the days of back alley abortions were like--are more likely to be in favor of keeping abortion legal today.

But abortion-rights supporters have an opportunity today to build a movement that can push back the tide of the anti-choice movement.

While President Barack Obama has already made positive moves--lifting the so-called "Mexico City policy," a global gag rule that prohibits federal aid from going to international family planning organizations that provide abortions or abortion counseling, and allowing the FDA to approve clinical trials using embryonic stem cells--he is, like most Democrats, reluctant to fully proclaim that a woman's right to choose abortion is fundamental. Instead, we are told, Democrats want to make abortion safe, legal and rare (with the emphasis, it seems, always on "rare").

Such a reluctance to make a positive case for the right to abortion leaves the field open for the Dan Rubys of the world to press their agenda forward.

Instead, we need to remind people that what matters most when it comes to abortion rights is not voting for this or that pro-choice judge or politician, but making a vocal defense of abortion rights and being confident to take on the right wing--whether it be defending clinics or picketing and protesting against anti-choice activists and politicians.

Only an unapologetic defense of abortion rights--and a movement to take on the right wing--will be able to win back the ground we've lost since Roe first became law.
Nicole Colson, Chicago