Feminist Friday: Have Pro-Deathers Finally Gone Too Far?

Posted by: madamab on: November 11, 2011

• In: Feminism | misogyny | Morning Widdershins | Open Thread | Patriarchy | Sexism | Women
• 12 Comments

OFEL Will Avenge You, Zygotic American!

Good morning, all. It’s Veteran’s Day, and I want to spend a moment honoring all of those who serve, especially our Widdershin veterans and families of veterans. (Come to think of it – that’s probably everyone here!) In any case, we are forever indebted to your courage, and thank you so very much for your service.

We’ve spent some time on how terrible that fertilized egg “personhood” referendum was in Mississippi, and have breathed large sighs of relief that the measure was resoundingly rejected. However, I got a letter from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand tonight, stating that House Republicans have introduced three bills copying that very same ballot measure, and further, that each bill has 63 co-sponsors. Being the very odd person that I am, I got to thinking, “Man! Those fertilized eggs must have one hell of a lobby!” Then I started imagining an organization called “OFEL” (Ovum and Fertilized Egg Lobbyists).  What would those lobbying sessions be like? After all, these Ovums and Fertilized Eggs have no mouths with which to communicate their desires for Constitutional rights. (I would say that they have no brains either, but that never stopped Rick Perry, or so many other Post-Birth persons.) I mean, I’m all for the First Amendment and all, but how can you need freedom of speech if you can’t speak? How can you need freedom of assembly if you have no body with which to assemble?

But then I realized that, just like Corporate Persons have their lobbyists (they’re called the Legislative and Executive Branches in America), so, too, could Pre-Birth Persons. In fact, I’ve managed to locate OFEL’s Statement of Principles, right next to Michele Bachmann’s gaydar and Barack Obama’s Democratic membership card. Yes, I will do you the enormous favor of sharing it with you. I know, you are not worthy!

We, the Ovum and Fertilized Egg Lobby (OFEL), do hereby affirm the following:

1. Protoplasmic Entities Are People Too.
2. Every Period is Murder.
3. Every Sperm is Sacred.

So short, and yet soooo powerful! (Much like Napoleon.) With beliefs like this, you can see why they lobby for the types of legislation they do! And they are represented by such fine specimens of post-birth humanity as Rick Santorum and Haley Barbour, who are very concerned about teh wimminz who, left unsupervised by men, might just go around menstruating with no regard for the Protoplasmic Entities inside them. Demons!

All snarking aside, here’s some more information about the bills in Congress.

Like the Mississippi measure, these bills, which are not constitutional amendments, would extend the rights of legal personhood—including equal protection under  the law—to a zygote, the single cell formed when a human sperm fuses  with an egg. The national measures are “designed to achieve the same  end” as the Mississippi effort, says Sara Rosenbaum, a health law expert  and professor at George Washington University who frequently testifies  before Congress on reproductive rights issues. “The aim of the bills is  to reclassify or to overturn…the fundamental constitutional fact on  which Roe v. Wade rests,” she adds. Opponents of abortion  rights agree with Rosenbaum’s analysis: The National Pro-Life Alliance, a  group that backs all three bills, calls them “a frontal assault on Roe v. Wade” and sees them as a way of “legislatively overturning” the Supreme Court decision.

If the bills become law and zygotes are afforded the protection of legal personhood, abortion would be legally equivalent to murder, as would almost anything that interfered with the zygote’s development. That could include the morning-after pill, which primarily works by preventing fertilization but which anti-abortion activists insist prevents fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus. (Many scientists disagree.) Intrauterine devices (IUDs), which can prevent implantation, would also be affected by the laws.

That is the goal of all of these bills – simply to overturn Roe v. Wade. Can you imagine spending your entire life obsessing about zygotic personhood and how many eggs are “dying” every day, instead of about how many grown human beings are being killed, tortured and raped every day because of war and terrorism? How “pro-life” are those priorities?

Here is a list of the 63 co-sponsors of the “Sanctity of Life Act,” introduced in January of this year.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia (for himself, Mr. AKIN, Mr. ALEXANDER, Mr. BARTLETT, Mr. BISHOP of Utah, Mr. CARTER, Mr. CHAFFETZ, Mr. COLE, Mr. CONAWAY, Mr. FLEMING, Mr. FORBES, Ms. FOXX, Mr. FRANKS of Arizona, Mr. GARRETT, Mr. GINGREY of Georgia, Mr. GOHMERT, Mr. JONES, Mr. KING of Iowa, Mr. KINGSTON, Mr. KLINE, Mr. LAMBORN, Mr. LATTA, Mr. MANZULLO, Mr. MARCHANT, Mr. MCHENRY, Mr. MCKINLEY, Mr. MILLER of Florida, Mrs. MYRICK, Mr. NEUGEBAUER, Mr. OLSON, Mr. ROE of Tennessee, Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky, Mr. ROGERS of Alabama, Mr. ROONEY, Mr. SCALISE, Mr. SCHOCK, Mr. TERRY, Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania, Mr. WESTMORELAND, Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas, Mr. HERGER, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin, Mr. GARY G. MILLER of California, Mr. ADERHOLT, Mr. BACHUS, Mr. CRAWFORD, Mr. LONG, Mr. PEARCE, Mrs. BLACK, Mr. GIBBS, Mr. HUELSKAMP, Mr. LUETKEMEYER, Mr. ROKITA, and Mr. WITTMAN.

If you see any of your representatives on this list, I do hope you go to the ballot box and vote against them as soon as you can. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to take the House back from these insane pro-deathers, or not only will we have to fight these measures in the states, we will have to fight them at the federal level as well. I truly hope they have finally overplayed their hands, and that in 2012 we will finally see the backs of these lunatics, never to be allowed near the halls of Congress again.

This is an open thread. (I will try to bring back the Lounge next week…it’s just been too crazy at work lately.)

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Tags: feminist Friday, fertilzed egg personhood, pro-deathers, zygotic americans