Iowa bill would ban all abortions
By Jessica GentileFebruary 16th, 2011, 12:56 pmComments (10)
By most experts' estimations, a bill in the Iowa House of Representatives that would ban all abortions from conception onward will never pass. But it's still pretty messed-up. Between this and South Dakota's "justifiable homicide clause" which would allow for the murder of abortion doctors, ladies everywhere have been clinging to their ovaries for dear life (or should I say, choice?) this week.
According to the Des Moines Register, the bill "states that each life, from the moment of conception, is accorded full rights of any person under the constitution." It's intended as a direct challenge to Roe V. Wade, much like Ohio's similar "heartbeat bill." And while the bill is aimed at banning abortion, it's unclear as to who should be prosecuted under the act. Um, how about "no one?"
The bill's founder Republican Rep. Kim Pearson (a woman, no less!) hopes the bill goes all the way to the Supreme Court.
Commentarium (10 Comments)
Affording a blastocyst the full rights of a person under the Iowa constitution presumably means that anyone involved in an abortion would be liable for prosecution for conspiracy to commit murder, including the woman, the doctor and any other health professionals involved in the procedure.
Really, Iowa?? Really?
We were doing so well with the whole legalizing gay marriage thing, now we are failing miserably.
Does this include the right to keep and bear arms under the 2nd Amendment? Armed fetuses can be pretty scary.
This makes me think though, that if there was a state/country in which a solid, stable majority wanted abortion to be illegal, then that's just fine if you believe in democracy. Even if you argued that it's the state's duty to protect autonomy (a presupposed value in democracy), access to abortion doesn't seem like the sort of right fundamentally built into autonomy because I can imagine a society in which no abortions were necessary to respect autonomy (really advanced ones with good birth control, for example). So, do we still think it's necessarily unethical if the illegality of abortion is democratically decided?
Well, what if that same states solid, stable majority wanted to take equal rights away from blacks? What if they decided that fat people and little people didn't have the right to vote? Part of what the Constitution and Bill of Rights do is protect the minority from the majority.
So if the state forces an American citizen to have a baby against her will, isn't that forcing her to buy something she doesn't want?
Phenmoenal breakdown of the topic, you should write for me too!
You raelly found a way to make this whole process easier.
Well, I guess the President will just have to order the federalization of the Iowa National Guard in order to enforce the constitutional rights of the women of that state. The zealots who want to denigrate women to the status of chattel need to be stopped in their tracks. Of course, they would like nothing better than a religious war. That's their objective where they can hopefully establish a biblical based Christian theocracy whereby the Constitution is thrown in a dumpster.