The Criminalization of Bad Mothers

[lynn82md.livejournal.com]

I got this snippet from the middle of the article. It's very long, but I think it's an interesting article even though some parts make me roll my eyes.

Last summer, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals upheld this expanded interpretation of the chemical-endangerment law, ruling that the dictionary definition of “child” includes “unborn child,” an interpretation that will be challenged when the state’s Supreme Court considers Kimbrough’s case in the coming months. But the implications of that ruling go far beyond Alabama. Critics like Ketteringham argue that Alabama’s chemical-endangerment law offers a back door into what has become known as the “fetal personhood” argument.

Personhood USA, an organization based in Colorado, was founded in 2008 by Keith Mason after he became frustrated by the mainstream anti-abortion movement’s incremental approach of restricting the availability of legal abortion. “From my perspective, I saw a movement that was largely dying or dead and had a lack of enthusiasm from younger people and from people who had been in the fight for so many years,” he told me. “Something had to change. Personhood is that rallying point, because it’s the crux of the issue.” His movement seeks to establish the fetus’s right to live as equal to that of the mother’s.

Personhood advocates regard fetal rights as a civil rights issue, and they often compare themselves to abolitionists. “I think it would be unequal protection to give the woman a pass when anyone else who injects drugs into a child would be prosecuted,” Ben DuPré, director of Personhood Alabama, said. “What it boils down to is, aren’t these little children persons?”

The goal of Personhood USA is to establish that a fully rights-endowed person is created when sperm meets egg. To that end, it has introduced initiatives and measures in legislatures in 22 states. Though none of these measures have become law, some, like Proposition 26 in Mississippi, have made it to a ballot referendum, and other measures have passed legislative chambers in North Dakota, Montana and Oklahoma. The problem with those measures, from a legal perspective, says Lynn Paltrow, executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, is that “there is no way to treat fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses as separate constitutional persons without subtracting pregnant women from the community of constitutional persons.”

What is everyone's thoughts on this?

Comments

[jem-endured-fit.livejournal.com]

This is my very annoyed and crabby take - more should speak out on the subject of what an embryo/zygote/fetus really is, a parasite to the host.