April 15, 2015 12:35 PM UTC

Reporters should call bill giving legal rights to fetuses "personhood," not "fetal homicide"

• 2 Comments
• by: Jason Salzman

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

In response to the March 18 attack on a pregnant women in Longmont, state Senate Republicans have introduced legislation expanding the definition of “person” in specific state laws, including Colorado’s murder statute, to include an “unborn child at every stage of gestation from conception until live birth.”

If that sounds like personhood to you, giving legal rights to zygotes (fertilized eggs), that’s because it is a form of personhood. It establishes the fetus as a person, opening the door to possible bans on abortion and the arrest of pregnant women for crimes (e.g., child abuse) against their own fetus. And that’s what concerns Senate Democrats, who are opposing the legislation and saying Republicans are taking advantage of the horrific crime against Michelle Wilkins to pass personhood legislation.

“I am disappointed that the Republicans are choosing to use what happened to the Wilkins family to get ‘personhood’ into law,” said state Sen. Pat Steadman (D-Denver) in a statement after the GOP bill was introduced Tuesday afternoon.

Steadman, along with pro-choice advocates, point out that Colorado’s 2013 law, the “Crimes Against Pregnant Women” act, allows for severe penalties for crimes like the one Wilkins endured, while protecting abortion rights and preventing prosecutors from arresting pregnant women, for example, for abuse of her own fetus–which has been done even in states with laws specifically prohibiting prosecutors from doing this.

“What occurred in Longmont was horrible, and the perpetrator deserves to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, which if found guilty could result in a sentence of over 100 years in prison,” said Steadman. “Using this tragedy to promote new laws that Colorado voters have soundly rejected is out of bounds.”

Reporters should be clear that the bill introduced yesterday and sponsored by state senate Bill Cadman and 14 other Republicans, is a variation of personhood legislation, even though it excludes from prosecution acts “committed by the mother of her unborn child,” “a medical procedure” performed by medical professionals or doctors, or the “administration” of legal medicine.

This vague language, like “medical procedure” puts abortion rights in jeopardy–particularly because the word “abortion” is not mentioned at all in the text of Cadman’s bill.

In contrast, similar laws, like a one in Kentucky, very explicitly exclude the performance of an “abortion” from possible persecution. Kentucky’s law states that prosecution would not be allowed for “any abortion for which the consent of the pregnant woman has been obtained or for which the consent is implied by law in a medical emergency.”

So I don’t understand why some personhood activists say the language in Cadman’s bill affirms abortion. It’s too vague to do this.

Even when abortion is specifically excluded from these types of bills, pro-choice advocates say laws like Cadman’s, ironically, tread on the rights of pregnant women.

“Our research shows that in the current U.S. political environment, there is no way to put one of these laws in place without it becoming a tool for controlling and punishing pregnant women themselves,” said Lynn Paltrow, director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women.