Will Personhood ban abortion?
YES! The aim of state and federal personhood amendment is different from measures that try to regulate abortion such as waiting periods or parental consent bills. Personhood confronts abortion head on and says “Stop it now!” Personhood calls it like is: every human being is a person, and you should never intentionally take the life of an innocent person.
What about Roe v. Wade?
Justice Blackmun wrote that “if personhood is established, the case for abortion collapses.” The very man who authored Roe v. Wade shows us the way. Are we sensible enough to try it?
Ban Contraception?
NO! This is a scare tactic used by the abortion industry. Contraception is anything that prevents the creation of a human being, and personhood only protects human beings. Only chemicals that cause abortion, such as RU486 and “the morning after pill,” would be affected. After personhood, pharmaceutical companies will continue to manufacture, sell, and invent new kinds of non-abortifacient birth control drugs and devices.
What is RU486?
RU486 is commonly referred to as “The Abortion Pill.” It is a chemical abortifacient known as “mifepristone” or “Mifeprex” taken to kill the child and end pregnancy, not prevent it. Marketed as a “morning after pill,” the drug “Ella” is a chemical compound nearly identical to RU486.
Ban In Vitro Fertilization?
NO! This is another scare tactic used by the abortion industry. In Vitro Fertilization deals with the creation of life, and it is done around the world without killing human embryos. In Germany, a country that is especially sensitive to the abuses of science, IVF is not prohibited, but it is regulated to protect mothers and the children created.
Often, IVF doctors will implant several embryos, causing a serious risk to the mother’s health. They then recommend “selective reduction” abortion of one or several of the babies. When they are finished, they will discard any “leftover” or unwanted embryos.
The IVF industry is completely unregulated. A barber has to comply with more regulations than an IVF clinic. Shouldn’t the children created via IVF–the very same children that couples struggling with infertility try so hard to conceive–be treated as persons, not property that can be mass produced and discarded like medical waste?
What about rape and incest?
A cornerstone of the “pro-choice” movement is that abortion is the treatment of choice for rape. Yet pregnancy rarely results from rape. The vast majority of abortions (over 99%) are for reasons other than rape or incest. Studies have shown that 70-80% of victims choose to give birth rather than abort.
The last thing a woman who has been through the trauma of rape needs is the added trauma of an abortion. Rather than mitigating the original shock of the attack, abortion compounds it. Clinical studies demonstrate this.
A study from the University of British Columbia’s Dept. of Psychiatry concluded in part: “Whatever may be the case at the conscious level, at a much deeper level abortion is regarded by many women as infanticide.”
A 2006 study found that women who had abortions were three times more likely to have suicidal thoughts than women who were pregnant, but did not abort. Over 40 peer reviewed studies have confirmed that abortion significantly increases the risk for several mental health problems including depression, anxiety, substance abuse and suicidal thoughts and behaviors.
The way a child was conceived does not change what he or she is: a baby. We need to make sure that both mom and baby are being taken care of and that she is receiving counseling and healing. Rather than aborting her child in one of the most traumatic moments of her life, we need to provide care for both her and her child.
What about the life of the mother?
There are tragic situations where the mother needs to receive treatment for a deadly condition that, in turn, might cause the death of the child. Such treatment is perfectly compatible with personhood and the belief that both lives are precious.
The charge that personhood denies life-saving medicine has been proven false, time and again, by legal analysis from the Mississippi Center for Public Policy and elsewhere. But even simple reason dictates that if two lives will be lost, doctors must save one. The law will always protect them.
Cause women to be prosecuted for miscarriage?
NO! This is one of the most outrageous scare tactics of all. As a society we deal with unintentional, tragic deaths all the time. Just as a family who loses a child to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is not prosecuted or even investigated (unless there is reasonable cause to believe wrongdoing), the government will never investigate a woman following an unintentional miscarriage.
Ban stem cell research?
NO! Personhood will not prohibit ethical forms of stem cell research such as Adult Stem Cell Research (ASC) and Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Research (iPS), but only Embryonic Stem Cell Research (ESC) which kills the embryo and places the value of one person’s life over another. Embryonic Stem Cell Research involves the destruction of human embryos to harvest their cells. ESC has resulted in zero cures for diseases.
Adult stem cells are found in 12 different places in the body. They are pluripotent which means it is already determined what types of cells they will become. Adult Stem Cell Research has resulted in 73 treatments for diseases including diabetes, Parkinson’s, breast cancer, leukemia, ovarian cancer, paralysis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and cirrhosis of the liver.
In 2008, iPS cells were discovered. iPS research involves taking adult stem cells and reprogramming them to resemble embryonic-like stem cells. These cells function like embryonic cells without the destruction of life. There is also less potential for rejection because they are from the patient’s own body.
In November of 2011, Geron Corporation announced that they were closing their Embryonic Stem Cell Research division. This is significant because they own many of the ESC patents. With the continuing controversy surrounding ESC research, the lack of successful treatments, and the discovery of the less controversial and more promising iPS cells, experts say that Embryonic Stem Cell Research has become obsolete.
A note on the scare tactics:
The main disseminator of the scare tactics against personhood is Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the world, with a billion dollar industry at stake. Their latest annual report showed they received $487.4 million in tax funding from the federal government. When Planned Parenthood attacks personhood is it because of one reason and one reason only, personhood threatens their abortion business.