Full Senate aborts 'personhood' bill with procedural motion

Using a procedural maneuver the full Senate killed the controversial "personhood" measure that had just been approved by the Senate Education and Health Committee earlier in the day.

On a 24-14 vote the chamber re-referred the bill back to committee and passed it by for the year.

Following approval in the Senate committee earlier protests against the measure got heated - with protesters being removed from both the General Assembly Building and Capitol grounds.

Their ranks swelled to nearly 500 people as they came back and lined the walk between the GAB and Capitol as lawmakers made their way between the two buildings. This was a repeat of Monday's silent protest when roughly 1,200 people lined the walk.

This time however, protesters cheered wildly and thanked Democratic lawmakers who have been vocal opponents of anti-abortion measures this session - only remaining silent as GOP lawmakers passed.

Comments

[Forward thinker]

Dean et al,
You are truly missing the point. Abortion is small change compared to the golden opportunities for our elderly, feebleminded, etc. You could call it Planned Decrepitude. Just think of the lucrative business model. The mind boggles. Who could argue that a human with advanced Alzheimer's is a "person". BTW compared to abortion, lethal injection is painless. The slope is slippery.

[Dean]

RF,

It's not a child. It's not a person. That's what this law was about. It is a fertilized egg, a zygote, a fetus, or a growth. Choose your word based on gestational interval, I don't care. It is NOT a child -- not by any law, not by any definition. I suggest you try a dictionary; any one will do.

Nevertheless, you would be a hypocrit, and here's why: You would make this thing into a person, hence abortion illegal because it would then be 'murder'.

Yet, would you prosecute as such? Not likely. Even if you had the termerity to boldly lie and say that, "Yes, I would demand that society bring the full force of murder laws down up on a woman for having an abortion, you cannot rationally expect that the government would do so."

Which is why these "personhood bills/amendments" are so SOUNDLY defeated.

Nevertheless, let us assume that it passes, "What penalty would you prescribe for the 'commission of premeditated murder by method of illegal abortion or induced miscarriage'?"

Gosh, pretty violent, eh? Premeditated, too. The needle is the only logical answer, assuming the woman isn't butchered in the alley by the abortionist.

I await your reasoned, cool and detached, response.

[r f]

Dean: I disagree on both counts. First, protecting the rights of the child is an individual protection, not a societal one. If it were the interests of society first, then you would expect to see some rationale probably based on stats etc. why this is good/bad for society. Instead the focus is on the individual not the states.
Second, it is weird that you say the interests of the child and mother then in the same sentence say the decision to terminate is hers alone. How can it be hers alone when there is another party, i.e. the child, whose interests may be at odds with hers. You may say that the child can't let its desires be known but that is precisely why his/her interests have to be taken up by others. For example, in litigation a child too young to speak for itself will have its interests protected by a guardian ad litem. Should we have less protections when the child's very life is at stake?

[L Mitch]

I don't have the right to tell you not to raise your children as looney right-wing hypocrites, and you don't have the right to force me to have a baby if I don't want to. The anti-abortionists are actually the biggest cravens of our time. They choose this stupid thing to spend all their time and money fighting, while crushing a woman's right to determine what to do with her body and her fetus. It's an easy fight, actually. Why don't you spend your efforts on things that will do something for society and actually improve life on our planet, such as getting rids of guns and war and poverty? It is amazing that the most religious among you champion gun rights and vote for warmongers (like W). Quit calling yourselves Christians, when everything you believe in is the opposite of what Christ preached!

[Terisa]

If an embryo is a person, and a corporation is also a person, then if I conceive and incorporate in the same day, can I drive alone in the HOV-3 lane?

[Dean]

Now, let me ask you an question. "By what reason, or perceived right, do YOU believe that society has an interest in the fertilized egg, zygote, or unviable embryo?"

[Dean]

RF,

Wow! How completely backwards do you, and can you, have the picture?

When society prohibits something completely, then it is placing the greatest empathsis on societal interest.

As it is now, until the third trimester, the interests of the mother and child outweigh those of society because the decision to terminate is hers alone.

[r f]

Dear Dean: I am saddened by your apparent belief that the interests of "society" overcome those of the individual even to the extreme. You seem to believe that people are simply creatures of the state or a cog in a machine with no inherent dignity or worth of their own. This is typical of big government lovers especially on the left.
In America, I thought we believed in personal freedom and worth of the individual person. But, you ask, isn't that what you are promoting i.e. a woman's individual rights over the State's? Actually , no. That argument holds water if you are only talking about an individual making choices for themselves alone. For example, it may surprise you to learn that I believe in the state leaving people alone for the most part. The difference comes when there is a second party the individual is choosing for. The child in utero doesn't get a say in its own execution and there is the difference. Saying that if you don't like abortion don't have one is tantamount to saying don't like murder, don't commit murder. A flip response. I am sure you would not have the same attitude if another person decided you needed to be killed based on their "choice" not yours. That in a nutshell is why we have laws against murder and the crux of the distinction. Why do you not afford the unborn child the same protection as yourself would demand? I am interested in your response.

[cat09tails]

Tired of the "small, less obtrusive" government tromping on our rights?

Join us in Richmond for a candlelight vigil Monday evening: https://www.facebook.com/events/190254754411819/

and a demonstration in front of the Governor's mansion next Saturday: https://www.facebook.com/events/184467261656818/

[soashamed]

Forward thinker: We already have those bold politicians. They won't come out and actually say they are doing what you sugguest, but it is happening right before our eyes. They all know what Marx stated, and many of them agree with his notion. Under the new law (Obamacare), elderly people with serious illnesses requireing expensive surgery or treatment will only be afforded "comfort care". I can see them simply injecting a cheap drug to hasten the event. You see it is no longer about love and caring for people. Every politician and most average people in the world today make decisions based on two things; number one is money and number two is power. We are headed to an era where once a persons useful years are past they will be ordered to be destroyed by the government. It just cost too much to keep us around. Who would want to live in a world where this is the norm anyway? Anyone who can't see we are becoming less and less free is simply playing right into the plan.