14th Amendment personhood
by digby
In today’s Focus on the Theocrats presidential debate (led by an over-the-top lugubrious Frank Luntz) some fellow asked if, in the event that Roe vs Wade was overturned, would they propose a federal ban on abortion? Newt said that he agreed with Robert George’s proposal to apply the 14th Amendment to fetuses.(And would also insist that the courts have no jurisdiction to boot.)
Here’s George’s question on the subject at a recent GOP presidential forum:
Many believe that we need a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe v. Wade. However, Section Five of the Fourteenth Amendment expressly empowers the Congress, by appropriate legislation, to enforce the guarantees of due process and equal protection contained in the Amendment’s first section. As someone who believes in the inherent and equal dignity of all members of the human family, including the child in the womb, would you propose to Congress appropriate legislation, pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment, to protect human life in all stages and conditions?
Newt, Bachman and Cain all said yes. Perry wasn’t in yet. Ron Paul said no at that time. Today he said that he was for it but that the states should enforce it, whatever that means. Romeny hedged, but basically said no. (He wasn’t at this debate today.)
Here’s the thing I find odd about all this. This has been a part of the GOP platform for a long time:
Maintaining The Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life
Faithful to the first guarantee of the Declaration of Independence, we assert the inherent dignity and sanctity of all human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.
Granted, George is saying they can skip that whole inconvenient amendment thing. But the essential question is the same.
Here’s the pertinent passage of the 14th amendment:
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
It’s “personhood” along the lines of that failed Mississippi initiative.Fetuses are to be given equal protection.
I wonder whose property the uterus really is?
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