Anti-abortion "personhood" bill advances in Virginia

[lynn82md.livejournal.com]

PORTSMOUTH, Virginia (Reuters) - Virginia lawmakers took a step toward outlawing abortion on Tuesday by approving "personhood" legislation that grants individual rights to an embryo from the moment of conception.

The Republican-controlled House of Delegates voted 66-32 in favor of defining the word person under state law to include unborn children "from the moment of conception until birth at every stage of biological development."

The measure now heads to the Senate, which is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats but with Republican Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling wielding the tie-breaking vote.

Republican Delegate Bob Marshall, an abortion opponent who introduced the legislation, said the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the United States would not have been rendered if Texas state law had regarded the unborn as a person "in the full sense."

"So this is a first step, a necessary step, but it's not sufficient to directly challenge Roe," Marshall said in a phone interview.

Virginia's approach differs from failed attempts to define a fertilized egg as a legal person in Colorado in 2008 and 2010 and in Mississippi in 2011.

Virginia's effort avoids involving a constitutional amendment like those states, instead seeking changes throughout the legal code, said Elizabeth Nash, public policy associate at the Washington-based Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive health issues.

But she said the intent is the same, with the measure ultimately aimed at banning abortion, contraception and infertility treatment.

Pro-choice Virginians...you have my sympathy.

I keep forgetting that even many lifers seem to hate these type of bills because it affects them too just as much as pro-choice women. If a woman would miscarry, she could be punished. No one would be able to use contraception. Infetile couples wouldn't be able to use IVF as an option. The cases of abortion that some lifers support would be banned too (i.e if a woman's life is in danger).

I think the personhood bills are proving to be a major rift within the pro-life movement. I mean, we've seen how these bills were defeated in heavily pro-life states (i.e Mississippi). I mean, if people on your own side don't like the bill because it actually affects them, then there's a good chance that it won't pass.

All I can say for Virginia right now is that I hope this fails miserably like it did in Colorado and Mississippi. I think the more people voice their opposition to these kinds of bills, the more Personhood USA is going to give up trying to pass these bills because it seems like there's only a small fraction of people on the pro-life/anti-abortion side that support this kind of thing. However, I'm glad this bill failed to see the daylight when it was introduce in the Maryland General Assembly.