The Unintended Consequences Of Personhood Legislation

The GOP is pursuing personhood legislation in states around the country as a way to make abortions illegal. Since the pro-life movement hasn't been able to overturn Roe v. Wade, they're using this as an alternative attack on the legal right to abortion in the country. Colorado has twice tried to bring a personhood amendment, and Missouri has also failed to approve a personhood bill.

It's a move that is destined to have unintended consequences that its proponents are wary to even discuss. Virginia is the latest to attempt to legislate away the right of abortion by redefining the term person. The GOP is pushing a personhood bill there, and yet the word "person" appears in the Virginia statutes 25,000 times. Any chance that something important might be affected by changing the definition?

Absolutely.

Unfortunately, not only would this bill lay the foundation to ban abortion and contraception, it could also wreak havoc on other areas of the law. The word “person” appears over 25,000 times in the laws of Virginia. No one knows the exact consequences of changing such an ordinary word, but the proponents of H.B. 1 refused to discuss or address these concerns in committee or on the floor of the House. Granting fertilized eggs all of the rights, privileges, and immunities the people of the Commonwealth currently hold could impact inheritance laws, election laws, tax laws, and even criminal laws. The bill has the potential to allow individuals to claim embryos in petri dishes as dependents, to challenge population numbers and election districts based on where IVF clinics are located. We fear this bill could even allow a non-family member to bring charges against a woman who has had a miscarriage.

The more legislatures attempt to push these kinds of laws, the greater the chances that the unintended consequences will be more severe.

Granting personhood to an embryo could potentially result in questioning census results, tax levies, inheritance law, and domestic relations laws, employer benefits laws, etc.

The GOP is opening a Pandora's box of trouble with this - and it's all with an eye towards eliminating the legal right to abortion. It's a roundabout attempt to make abortions illegal - and by making a claim that is unsupported by the science at that.

Small Thinking and Big Time Intrusion

Rick Santorum, the latest anointed Anyone But Romney candidate for the GOP nomination for president, has been parroting the small government line for years. His campaign rhetoric is all about reducing the size of government. The New York Times picked up on Santorum's stump speech, indicating that it's small thinking and for the government to out of the way. It's a good op-ed on Santorum's position, but it doesn't quite go far enough.

Santorum also goes to the extreme position of being all for government intrusion into personal lives - it should be ever more intrusive into a woman's health and decisions about her own life.

So, Santorum (and most of the rest of the GOP for that matter) is all for small government, except when it comes to contraceptive rights, the right to have an abortion, and other reproductive health choices. When that comes up, the government must impose highly invasive procedures that are unwarranted, costly, and extremely burdensome. It's anything but small-government ideology. It's the most invasive kind of government intrusion.

Contraception shouldn't be controversial in this day and age. It's safe, legal, and access shouldn't be an issue either. People can choose to use it or not, and insurance companies cover those medical costs. However, because religious groups are complaining, it's become fashionable to go after contraception - and the access to such health care.

The end result of these latest attacks on contraceptive rights is that women who want to practice birth control will find themselves with potentially fewer options and unwanted pregnancies, complications, and other issues that are far more troublesome from an ethical standpoint.

Pelosi's Inane Rant of the Day

Well, this should get your blood boiling. Apparently birth control is good for the economy.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?

PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

She's attempting to justify porkbarrel spending on a pet program - contraceptives and birth control - by claiming that birth control will reduce the need for education, health care, and everything else.

If these leftists are so interested in saving the economy and environment, how about doing it themselves by not procreating. You don't need the government to do that, just self-control. That would save everyone from all the hot air we're exposed to incessantly by the radical leftists.

Pelosi is basically telling people to do as I say, but not as I have done, as she's a mother of 5 children and has 6 grandchildren. I don't see her telling her kids to stop having kids.

It is without a doubt expensive to have kids. There's production costs for all the stuff that growing kids need, from baby formula, strollers, clothes, to costs of education. That's money that goes to school districts, teachers, and all the related industries that support school operations (publishers, manufacturers, maintenance, construction, etc.) All that money goes somewhere, and that includes corporations that pay taxes on that income, wages earned by all the people working for those stores, businesses, schools, and ancillary activities that people rely on.

It costs $190,000 to raise a child to the age of 18, and that's a conservative figure at best. Throw in college, which can cost another $100,000, and you're talking real money.

That's real income earned by all those people, and Pelosi is telling us to throw that all away because it costs money, but contraceptives will save us money in the long run?

Expect to hear lots more of this claptrap in the years to come.

UPDATE:
Here's the video, courtesy of Ms. Underestimated:



Note too that contraceptives and birth control will also include abortions, which is one of the pet causes of the left. Nice. The Democrats now think that the way to stimulate the economy is to encourage abortions and birth control.