1069

Should Fertilized Eggs Have Rights?

TIME/CNN

If Colorado for Equal Rights for Human Life and other anti-abortion groups can wrangle 76,000 signatures in the next six months, theirs could be the first state in the nation to vote on whether a fertilized egg should legally be considered a person. Despite resistance from abortion-rights groups, the Colorado Supreme Court on November 13 approved the ballot measure — 40 years after Colorado became the first state to relax abortion laws — giving a boost to a conservative political movement that has worked doggedly for decades to overturn Roe v. Wade. Colorado Right to Life spokesman Bob Enyart says, "Embryos are living human beings with eternal souls and spirits. You just have to refrain from killing one to see what a precious child it is."

Voters would decide if a fertilized egg is entitled to the Colorado constitutional protections of inalienable rights, equality of justice and due process of law. But opponents charge that the proposed ballot measure is just another attempt to fight abortion and a particularly misleading attempt because the word "abortion" would not appear on the ballot.

Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains says the proposal is "far outside the mainstream of Colorado." "By defining 'person' as any fertilized egg, the measure would call into question the legality of most hormonal birth control methods, such as birth control pills, as well as in-vitro fertilization," says regional president Vicki Cowart.

It would also raise the questions: what would happen to embryos awaiting implantation? Approximately 400,000 of them have been cryo-preserved in U.S. fertility clinics. Unused embryos are sometimes stored for later use, donated to others or given to scientists, according to Barbara Collura, executive director of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association. "We support the patient's right to determine the disposition of the embryos," Collura says.

But Enyart, who is also a Denver Christian radio talk show personality, holds up the Snowflake Baby Movement as an alternative: Don't kill any embryos; instead, encourage people to adopt them. About 100 frozen embryos have already been adopted in the U.S., says Enyart, who routinely steers his listeners to the Snowflake website for information on how to give an embryo a home.

It's hard to predict how many signatures Colorado's ballot measure will attract, but what's clear is that the anti-abortion movement is fractured. Colorado Right to Life has a mailing list of 10,000 and a $100,000 budget but is no longer affiliated with the National Right to Life Committee — "kicked out," says Enyart. He explains that the NRLC has refused to back "personhood" for decades, citing the unlikelihood that it would pass muster with the U.S. Supreme Court. The "purists" of the movement are so opposed to anything that even hints of approval for abortion that one new coalition of anti-abortion groups took out full-page ads in national newspapers criticizing evangelical leader James Dobson after he applauded the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the ban on partial birth abortions. In their eyes, Dobson, who opposes abortion, had given tacit approval to the "regulated killing of the unborn" by giving the nod to a court decision that recognizes the legality of the procedure in general even as it sets limits to it. And this week in Washington, the same coalition, with representatives from 12 states, plans to announce a new national splinter group — American Right to Life — which will be headed by Brian Rohrbough... >SNIP< ...who has been an outspoken critic of the American "culture of death."

Nationally, pro-choice sentiments appear to remain predominant. The Center for Reproductive Rights in October released poll results indicating that a majority of voters don't support government interference with "medically necessary procedures prescribed by health care professionals." The poll found that 55% of respondents wanted abortion rights protected by federal law. Still, anti-abortion efforts similar to those in Colorado are currently under way in at least a dozen other states, including Georgia, Mississippi and Michigan, while officials in two states — Montana and Oregon — have already given such attempts the official thumbs-down.

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What say y'all?

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Lightdemon

The biggest problem I think is that birth control pills will be seen as "killing a human life" every time the pill stops the reproductive process in the woman's body.

I might be wrong, so please correct me if I am, but doesn't birth control pills decieve the body into thinking that the fertalized egg is a foreign object, therefore sending antibodies and other disease fighting cells to eliminate that foreign object? Like a bacterial infection?

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1069

No.
BC pills contain a small amount of synthetic hormones (estrogen and progestin).
Hormonal contraception works in three ways: first, these hormones- in theory- stop the ovaries from releasing an egg (although sometimes an egg is released anyway).
Second, hormonal contraception thickens and alters (by acidifying) the pH balance of cervical secretions, making it difficult for sperm to travel through the cervix and get to an egg.
Third, hormonal contraception thins the endometrium (uterine lining- the blood and tissue that is shed each month via menstruation) so that if all else fails, and an egg is released and fertilized, it can't implant in the uterine lining, and is simply expelled along with the menses.

So, no, nothing "attacks" fertilized eggs.
BC simply makes the uterine lining "inhospitable" to them (because it's not thick enough for them to implant).
Hardly a crime, I'd say. There's no law saying one has to make one's body 'hospitable' to unwanted invaders.

Lightdemon

Good, then I've mistaken it for a very different type of birth control. Do you have any idea what it's called? I'm almost positive that this type of birth control exists. Maybe the hypodermal type?

1069

All hormonal contraceptives work the same way.
There is none that acts as you describe.

Lightdemon

Oh, this is really bugging me...I'm almost certain that I've heard of this type of birth control. I remember reading about it, and one of the major consequences of this type of birth control is that the woman will no longer be capable of having babies. Once her immune system starts to think that a fertilized egg is a foreign object, it'll remember it as such. So it eliminates the fertilized egg each and every time.

Well, I've been known to be off my rocker every now and then. So there's a chance that I'm beginning to go insane.



But either way, if fertilized eggs are given rights that a normal person would have, that definately question whether birth control is killing another human. For instance, if the egg is fertilized and then rejected out of the woman's body, is that called neglect abuse? Like in child abuse cases, where parents neglect thier child. Neglect is generally defined as not providing necessary support for your child, like food, clothes, etc. In this case, nutrition?

1069

No offense, sweetie, but that sounds sort of science-fiction-esque.
Perhaps it was just a nightmare, or else an evil urban legend started by the fundamentalists.

Right. Given the fact that more than half of all fertilized eggs do not implant and are spontaneously expelled without the woman ever even knowing, this creates a logistical nightmare.
Pregnancy tests cannot detect "a fertilized egg"; both quantative blood and urine tests detect hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin, a hormone produced in pregnancy), which is not present until after implantation.
I cannot imagine the logistics (or the violations of privacy and human rights) that would be involved in the State attempting to somehow regulate or even keep track of fertilization and implantation of women's eggs.

It's just preposterous, on the face of it.

bhkad

Even in the heated polarized debate on abortion your perception is factually and logically incorrect.

If the sperm does not fertilize an egg there is no conception.

No harm, no foul.

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1069

Eggs are occasionally still fertilized with hormonal contraception. But they aren't able to implant, so they are simply expelled, and no one's the wiser.
Harm/ foul?

Felicity

Why do you refuse to call the little human by the proper name for his stage of development rather that the quaint euphemism "fertilized egg"?

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