SC

Lazenby: SC Personhood Bills Stopped In Subcommittee

BILLS WERE “AN ATTACK ON WOMEN’S HEALTH AND LIBERTY” By Amy Lazenby || This week, a South Carolina Senate Judiciary Subcommittee considered two companion bills (S.83 and S.457) dealing with the controversial subject of granting “personhood” to a fertilized egg. These bills, together dubbed the “Personhood Act of South Carolina,” represented a significant…

BILLS WERE “AN ATTACK ON WOMEN’S HEALTH AND LIBERTY”

By Amy Lazenby || This week, a South Carolina Senate Judiciary Subcommittee considered two companion bills (S.83 and S.457) dealing with the controversial subject of granting “personhood” to a fertilized egg. These bills, together dubbed the “Personhood Act of South Carolina,” represented a significant attack on women’s health and reproductive freedom.

The acts “ESTABLISH THAT THE RIGHT TO LIFE FOR EACH BORN AND PREBORN HUMAN BEING VESTS AT FERTILIZATION, AND THAT THE RIGHTS OF DUE PROCESS AND EQUAL PROTECTION, GUARANTEED BY ARTICLE I, SECTION 3 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THIS STATE, VEST AT FERTILIZATION FOR EACH BORN AND PREBORN HUMAN PERSON.”

As written, the Personhood Act would have granted fertilized eggs the same rights, privileges and immunities as people. By giving legal rights to fertilized eggs, these bills threatened women’s access to hormonal birth control methods, including access to emergency contraception – even in cases of rape and incest – because they can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in a woman’s uterus. By asserting that all legal protections vest at the moment of fertilization, the proposed legislation could have also impact laws as wide-ranging as those pertaining to when property rights are granted, inheritance rights and access to the courts.

If passed, The Personhood Act would have effectively outlawed multiple medications which have become basic health care for women. Hormonal birth control methods are used not only to prevent pregnancy, but are also prescribed to treat conditions ranging from polycystic ovary syndrome to iron deficiency anemia to pelvic inflammatory disease. In addition, the act is so broadly written that it could outlaw in vitro fertilization, a method used to achieve pregnancy which results in more than 33,000 live deliveries per year in the United States. Treatment options for these conditions should be left up to women and their doctors, not legislators with no medical training and no personal stake, who were attempting to pass a bill with broad implications that did not take into account the myriad of individual health circumstances that women face.

Proponents of this type of legislation believe that the the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution reserves to the states the right to decide when life begins. Supporters equate personhood with civil rights and believe that a fertilized egg, acted upon by any of the methods listed above, is being denied due process of law. Such arguments run directly counter to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling in Roe. V. Wade, which held that the earliest point of viability for a fetus was at 24 weeks gestation. Any law passed in opposition to that Supreme Court decision would have certainly faced a legal challenge, and the state of South Carolina would be forced to spend its limited financial resources fighting a long, losing battle in the courts.

After taking testimony from those both supportive of and opposed to the bills, this week’s subcommittee hearing adjourned debate without taking a vote, meaning that they will not move forward this legislative session. “We are thrilled that our elected officials stood by the women of South Carolina,” said Emma Davidson, Associate Director for Strategic Mobilization for Tell Them, which supports age-appropriate, medically accurate health education and increased access to high-quality reproductive health counseling and services. “For the 16th year in a row, lawmakers have rejected these draconian regulations that would severely limit standard medical care for women and families.”

Women can make their own health care decisions. So-called “Personhood Acts” treat them as less than adults capable of doing so and deny to women basic methods of medical management that they have relied upon for decades. They place the rights of a fertilized egg above those of a fully formed legal adult. Such bills should be seen as the blatant attacks on health and reproductive rights – which are not just women’s rights but human rights – that they are and stopped accordingly. Fortunately for the women of South Carolina, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee members this week did just that.

lazenby

Amy Lazenby is the Associate Opinion Editor for FITSNews. Contact her at amy@fitsnews.com and follow her on Twitter @Mrs_Laz.

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23 comments

CNSYD March 13, 2014 at 3:28 pm

What does the law say in GA, your state of residence?

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Just Say No March 13, 2014 at 6:00 pm

Best not be in Georgia, Bo!

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ8d4VN1MlE

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Bee March 13, 2014 at 4:05 pm

Will, you can represent SC. Lazenby can represent GA.
All you need now is to find representatives of the other 48 states and you will have the entire country covered.
But then you will have to find people to come online and read all of the out of state rhetoric and pretend they care about what they have to say.

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SCBlueWoman March 13, 2014 at 4:10 pm

There is no war on women’s rights.

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YallCalmDown March 13, 2014 at 4:45 pm

Nope, none at all.

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tomstickler March 13, 2014 at 4:41 pm

A voice of reason at FitsNews. Props to Will for not quashing a view opposite his.

I was active defending reproductive freedom from 1970 to 2004 in Kentucky. Nice to see the younger generation keeping up the fight.

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GrandTango March 13, 2014 at 5:28 pm

Is the blood still on your hands 10 years later…???…were you one of those hippies who’d rape girls after giving them drugs…

Also: Your oldest murder victim would be 44 if you would not have killed her…I bet you’re real proud that your record of snuffing out life, in the name of liberal decadence…is so long…

PS: I would not be so sure FITS opposes you on this…he hates ever defender of life in public office…while he “likes” all the greedy abortionists…

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euwe max March 13, 2014 at 11:35 pm

Is the blood still on your hands 10 years later
——-
Make sure you wash that white shit off your hands… I’d hate to think that would still be there after 10 years!

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GrandTango March 13, 2014 at 4:53 pm

Congrats…The murderous Dr. Gosnell, and Satan, are standing and cheering, praying more babies can be killed, and more women snuffed-out on the suction table..

I prayed the greedy abortionists, and democrat politicians, would lose this…

You may have convinced yourself that this is a woman’s right, but it’s actually a way for men to use a woman, then send her to the slaughter house, to erase his “problem” so she can come back and be his stupid little toy…no responsibility attached…

Any mother, who can afford her children, should be ashamed for advocating poor women’s children are not worth the life God gave them….

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euwe max March 13, 2014 at 11:37 pm

A fish with human dna is God almighty to you, but the born poor who need health care are worth less than actual fish to you.

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John Boy March 13, 2014 at 4:59 pm

What’s next, SC…premeditated murder for jerking it?

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CorruptionInColumbia March 13, 2014 at 5:15 pm

Ya beat me to it John Boy, pun not intended. Reading this article, I was wondering how long before the anti-masturbationists would put forth a bill granting personhood to all those little white tadpoles that don’t quite make it to and through the big egg.

How many of us could wind up in prison, convicted of mass murder for choking the old chicken or blowing a load into a woman who had been the recipient of a tubal ligation or hysterectomy, not to mention a chick who does anal or gives good head?

Seriously, I am in agreement with Amy on this one.

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euwe max March 14, 2014 at 1:26 am

If only we could return, by stages, to the good old days of the Inquisition… That lasted for 400 years the first time, maybe we could beat the record.

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CorruptionInColumbia March 13, 2014 at 5:22 pm

I couldn’t help but LOL at comments by Senator Bright on this topic. He was calculating the number of abortions performed as “taxpayers” and Social Security “contributors” or some such. More likely, a child “raised” by a parent(s) who did not want it to begin with, would not receive the love, guidance, and support that any child deserves. They would therefore likely wind up a career criminal, incarcerated in jails, mental institutions, or worse, for most of their lives and claiming victims of various sorts between stays in those institutions.

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GrandTango March 13, 2014 at 5:31 pm

Hass anyone published a list who is contributing to the war chests of these greedy pro-abortionists????…

That’s common procedure for the democrat Hate squads…

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euwe max March 13, 2014 at 11:36 pm

Abortion is a smokescreen for the Republican support of the rich. They throw you a stinking fish, and you accept it as “anti-abortion, pro-life”

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tomstickler March 13, 2014 at 10:37 pm Reply
Amy Brandstadter Lazenby March 14, 2014 at 8:34 am

No optimism at all, actually. This piece was specific to the two personhood bills. I’m following the admitting privileges tactic, as well as the 19/20 week ban (both of which have met with more success nationwide than personhood), and they are a topic for another piece. Thank you for reading and commenting.

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euwe max March 13, 2014 at 11:34 pm

I’m waiting for legislation that declares an interrupted IPO an abortion rights issue.

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Mike at the Beach March 14, 2014 at 12:02 am

What’s the Georgia legislature up to? Anything more interesting than this?

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SCBlueWoman March 14, 2014 at 11:17 am

Only the GOP would think that a divided cell has more rights than a fully formed human female.

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dougmcburney March 14, 2014 at 2:05 pm

Amy: Your use of the term “fertilized egg” to describe a baby girl in the womb in 2014 is similar to the use of the word ni**er to describe a black woman in the field in 1850.

They are (and were) both persons, despite your effort to dehumanize them.

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idiotwind March 17, 2014 at 3:04 pm

what’s so special about fertilization? what’s the rational basis for using this moment to establish personhood? is it because this is the moment when male material is added to the mix? i say every egg is a potential pre-born infant. fertilized or not. this monthly aborting of unfertilized pre-born babies has got to stop. where’s the outrage!?

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