Several women may just hear the above message if they unfortunately have a miscarriage.
This post is about the personhood bills that are currently being proposed around the country that are an extension of a larger war. This war is a “war against women,” lead by the Republicans who have sought to restrict the availability of birth control and abortions. A Texas court has already banned funding to Planned Parenthood, a vital organization for many low income women who seek health care. Despite Planned Parenthood’s several services, such as STD testing and treatment, contraception, and cancer screening and prevention, abortion is always a hot button topic that gets all the attention. However, it is estimated that abortion figures in at only 3% of the total 11.4 million services performed by Planned Parenthood. This fact makes it strikingly clear that this ideologically-driven war against abortions and birth control greatly harms low income women by curtailing if not entirely stopping their access to health services.
This long time war against birth control and abortions has now spawned a new tactic: personhood bills. What is a personhood bill you ask? It is a bill that effectively gives an unborn child “at every stage of development… all of the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of the Commonwealth.” These bills further state that “human life begins at conception.” My…doesn’t that sound familiar…
Before looking deeper into these bills this post was going to take a tounge-in-cheek look at what these bills propose and argue sarcastically that their logical consequence would be prison time for any woman who had a miscarriage. Unfortunately, it appears that in some states this is a reality if the bill passes! While Virginia’s HB-1 bills says, “Nothing in this section shall be interpreted as creating a cause of action against a woman for directly or indirectly harming her unborn child,” Oklahoma’s personhood bill S.B 1433, for instance, contains no such provision, potentially leaving a woman liable for murder. Another bill in Oklahoma ”would ban birth control like the Plan B pill and fertility treatments that it says would kill a child. It would also outlaw abortion in all cases, including rape or incest.”
This election is crucial for womens’ rights since Paul Ryan backs these bills and that would be disastrous if Mitt Romney becomes the next president since he would most likely implement these laws, thus severely harming women throughout the U.S.
