This article in the New Oxford Review follows nicely on my posts about the CA Human Rights Amendment. After going on about the inconsistency of some people in the pro-life movement, (an argument I haven’t got time for, frankly), he makes this observation:
It could be called the Personhood Movement. It would have a very specific goal: legal recognition of the personhood of the human individual from fertilization onward, with accompanying absolute legal protection. In fact, its goal would be precisely the federal Personhood Amendment to the U.S. Constitution advocated by Judie Brown in her February 2009 NOR article. But there will never be a Personhood Amendment without a Personhood Movement. The Personhood Movement would jettison the term “pro-life.” If we must have some pithy moniker, then pro-personhood, pro-human child, and pro-child are credible options. Opponents of the death penalty or any given war would have a moral obligation to keep those causes separate from that of recognizing the personhood of preborn children. The Personhood Movement would embody this obligation by focusing solely on human personhood from conception to birth. It would drop stale slogans like “respect life from conception to natural death,” unless modified to “respect innocent human lives from conception to natural death.”
Within the academic community, there are many abortion apologists who know perfectly well that the being inside the womb is a member of the species homo sapiens. They deny that these particular human beings count as persons. That is the battle that needs to be fought and won. In the immortal words of Dr. Seuss, “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”
Learn more about the CA Human Rights Amendment here.
PS: I wanted to post a link to this post, over at the New Oxford Review, but you have to be a subscriber to post. If anyone is a subscriber, please let them know that I’m talking about them!