Anti-abortion initiative heads to court in Alaska
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The Anchorage Daily News reports that the Alaska Civil Liberties Union is supporting the lawsuit challenging the ballot drive, which was filed last week by plaintiffs including Vic Fischer, a former Democratic legislator and delegate to the state constitutional convention.
The lawsuit argues that Lt. Gov. Craig Campbell should never have certified the measure and that sponsors should be blocked from collecting signatures.
"It is just insane," said Jeffrey Mittman, executive director of the Alaska Civil Liberties Union.
The plaintiffs contend the proposal could have serious consequences and there is no way voters can know what it might mean for state laws if it passed. They argue that the measure is so broad it could result in women being sued over miscarriages.
Initiative sponsor Christopher Kurka hadn't seen the lawsuit, but insisted his opponents are using scare tactics and absurd scenarios to cloud the issue.
Kurka's effort is part of a nationwide push to put "personhood" initiatives on state ballots. The movement focuses on the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which established abortion rights nationally. Justice Harry Blackmun indicated that a fetus would be protected if its personhood were established.
"So, basically, what we're doing here is if we say that we recognize the unborn as persons, then a woman's right to choose or a right to privacy doesn't matter (just as) she doesn't have a right to kill her child after it's born," Kurka said.
The ballot measure would dictate that "all human beings, from the beginning of their biological development as human organisms, including the single-cell embryo ... shall be recognized as legal persons in the state of Alaska."
The state attorney general's office issued an opinion that any initiative trying to ban abortions would be clearly unconstitutional, but Attorney General Dan Sullivan said the "personhood" initiatve could still go forward.
Attorney General Dan Sullivan did suggest the petition include a disclaimer: that it "would not amend or repeal existing state law regulating abortion, but could impact some areas of the law, including criminal law, to extend rights and protections prior to birth."
Kurka says supporters will begin gathering the 32,734 signatures needed to get the measure on the ballot next month.
Mittman said it would open the door to someone suing on behalf of a single-celled embryo for anything an adult could now go to court for under Alaska law. He said certain contraception, including the morning-after pill and the intrauterine device, or IUD, could be banned.
Pregnant women who went skiing, for example, could possibly be sued if they later suffered a miscarriage, he said.
"So what's to stop somebody from suing on behalf of an embryo to receive a permanent fund dividend check?" Mittman said. "I mean, how can they not get one if they are a legal person?"
Kurka said that's a bit exaggerated: Only citizens can receive dividends, and citizens must be born.
"It's about whether or not we as a society are going to recognize the unborn as legal persons and call it for what it is," he said.
bump, I'm not an advocate for *abortion*, I'm an advocate for *choice* - I firmly believe it is not my right to take away another free person's choice over what happens to their body, regardless of how I feel about the act of abortion.
I’m glad you agree that we need to educate more thoroughly about reproduction and sex – maybe we can start with all of the adults who practice inconsistent condom use, thereby rendering the contraceptive practicality almost useless.
Though some steps are being made to address reproductive education, I can bank that many people *no longer in school* have no idea how to properly use a condom…because those “40 years of education” often didn’t include more information then sperm, egg, & fertilization process. *Maybe*, if you were at a particularly progressive school, you *might* get a gander at the words "vagina" & "penis." Howvere, in most cases, until about 15 years ago there often wasn’t ANY information about sex organs, masturbation, menstrual cycles, preventing pregnancy, etc...and that persists in many communities today with an emphasis on abstinence only education.
But I digress. :) To answer your question, contraceptive devices remain difficult for many young people to attain privately and at low cost. As a result, young people may engage in riskier behavior without the proper protection. And indeed, this very article discusses the possibility that some contraceptive devices could be made entirely inaccessible through a measure like this, particularly contraceptives like Plan B, which is often misunderstood as a contraceptive method.
Finally, this article is about a measure asking Alaskans to decide about personhood, not about when life begins. Those are different arguments, bump.
However, I would like to ask the question: Where does one draw the line as to when it is a person vs. a "blob of tissue"?
Peter Singer, a friend of Obama's science czar, Holdren, claims that a baby can be aborted up two years AFTER birth. There are those who say it can be aborted before the head comes out. But what if it is a breach? Then a baby that is halfway out, but backwards can be aborted, while one that is halfway out head first cannot be.
Some say it is ok to abort before the first breath. My sister stopped breathing after birth, so would it have been ok to abort her in ICU?
So where is that arbitrary line drawn? Is it before 2years old? Is it one minute or one second after birth? Is it one minute before birth? Is it one week, one month, one trimester before birth? What if your assumption is wrong? Are you guilty of murder?
Some believe that a child is the property of the parent until adulthood. Therefore, it is ok to abort at any age up to adulthood. But "adulthood" is defined by an arbitrary age of 18.Others believe that upon conception, the whom becomes the sphere of liberty protecting the child.
So what arbitrary ages and points of development should be set in a tyrannical statutory system to decide whether the child/fetus lives or dies?
Ultimately, a society that embraces abortion destroys itself though its own population reduction. Consider the declining Russian and European populations. Americans are now below 2 children per couple. China, even with its high population, is suffering from a severe lack of females.
It is an great example of true Free Market justice.
MrsS
Don't like aborition... them dont have one. Educate your kids to practice safe sex. Teach them the old saying... "no glove, no love"
Telling them NOT to do it doesn't work.
Now pay close attention to the anonymous commenter here who said “Liberals should be encouraged to abort their babies. The fewer parasites the better” – this is representative of the mindset that values an embryo over the life of a human being. It’s how pro-lifers justify murdering other people, from clinic doctors all the way up to the hypocrites cheerleading wars that kill thousands of innocents. It’s much easier to terrorize and persecute a woman, and just as convenient to not have any moral qualms about gunning anybody down who disagrees with them: calling them “parasites” is the chilling first step in ultimately denying someone “personhood.”
This is an issue about basic woman’s rights, and the same men with all the faux outrage over government intrusion into citizen’s lives don’t waste a second passing laws to control women.
Palin/Bachmann 2012
Please be real people we have better things to worry about and fix. How about start by taking care of all the unwanted children we already have in this town and our country.
Or how about ending the two wars we have so we can start one in Somalia on the terrorist there. Bigger problems more important issues are at hand people.
That argument is similar in sincerity to akflyfisher saying that the fetus removal is just a medical procedure, similar to any other medical procedure. Yet akflyfisher "absolutely HATES" abortion. Why? If it's just like an appendectomy, why the absolute HATE for it? It should mean nothing but a little emotionless discomfort and a few days missed from work. I don't agree with that either.
Where is birth control and contraception difficult to attain? The availability is to the saturation point. Everyone, everywhere has access, which is how it should be. Even though there is room for improvement, our schools have been teaching sex education for 40 years now. On the other hand, our culture has been selling irresponsible sex for the same 40 years. Coincidenatlly, many of the same advocates wants both to continue unchanged. We do need to educate about sex at least as hard as we sell sex. Probably more.
But this article is about allowing the voters of Alaska an opportunity to decide. As much as one side cries "Foul" against abortion rights, the other side cries "Foul" against the death of the unborn child. When life begins is the important question, and the declaration of one side or the other has not been proven true and absolute.
Sex is sacred, not sinful, but the sinful nature patriarchal religion attaches to it makes secular people rebel against the religious rules and creates an "anything goes" kind of atmosphere. It's like the pendulum swing from the Victorian era to the Free Love era in the sixties. If we hadn't had the totally warped religious mentality regarding sex to begin with, we might have some semblance of regarding sex as a normal, sacred activity today.
It's bizarre that so many Christians embrace violence, but reject the act of love as sinful. They'll let their kids watch violence all day long, but sex is forbidden territory. America won't show sex on network TV because the act of making love is considered pornographic, but kids can watch humans being shot, stabbed, blown-up, mutilated, and tortured all day long on any channel. They call it "action". Can't show love, but violence is big entertainment. Can't give a boy child a baby doll for fear he might turn gay if he practices being a father, but no problem giving him a toy weapon so he can practice violent behavior against other human beings.
Again, if we're going to create a society in which sex is a recreational activity, and use sex at every turn to sell all kinds of products, including the billion dollar industry that makes women more attractive, we have to have options for the millions of women who accidentally conceive. What do you think they're coloring their hair, getting rid of wrinkles and fat, and having billions of dollars worth of cosmetic surgery for? To sit on the couch and watch action flicks?! We sexualize young girls to sell designer clothing and magazines. We tell them they're worth more if they're sexy and worth nothing if they're not. What can we expect from a society that values its money more than its girl children? Lots and lots of unprotected recreational sex and lots and lots of abortions, that's what.
"Some states, like Alaska, may determine that they don't want to allow abortion, except in rape, incest, and health of mother cases. Other states may see it as a business opportunity to entice visitors, as Nevada used to do with divorces. If a person were so committed to abortion they could relocate. Or vice versa."
When we agree to restrictive abortion laws that only allow abortion in cases of rape and incest (I'll get to mother's health in a minute), I believe we need to address what we are implicitly saying: abortion is acceptable if the pregnancy is not the mother's "fault." (Radcliffe-Richards) The difference in a situation which involves sexual violence and one that does not isn't with the status or state of the fetus, it lies with how we choose to perceive the mother's culpability. Therefore the argument about sanctity of life seems to be only acceptable when convenient.
So, let's start from the premise that we choose to believe the above statement about responsibility. Generally speaking, when we believe someone is responsible for their actions, we allow them a variety of methods to address those actions.
By removing legal abortion options in addition to providing only limited reproductive education, we are fundamentally deleting all options for people. It seems as though we are saying, "Hey, despite the fact that we made contraceptives nearly impossible for people to get(or alternatively the contraception failed) and education on how to use those contraceptives properly very limited, the fact that you are pregnant is your fault and therefore you MUST spending the next 9 or so months carrying this child. Why? Because we want to punish you."
This seems like an absurd argument. Are we punishing the girl/woman for being pregnant? Are we punishing her for having sex?
Briefly, when talking about health to the mother, we must also consider the psychological ramifications of being forced to carry a child to term that you did not want in the first place. So what are we talking about when we say "health?" Comprehensive wellness of the individual or functionality of the body?
How can we argue that it is acceptable for us to force a stranger to carry an unwanted pregnancy to full term? The easy answer is we can't without impinging on all kinds of other rights granted to us by our government - and that's why we currently have abortion laws which make this decision the choice of the individual who is pregnant.
If this law is passed, there needs to be an amendment added that would make it illegal for men to kill millions of potential babies whose lives end in a Kleenex tissue. Billions of potential lives are "spilleth upon the ground" every single day. Oh the humanity! :-O
At the very least, if it becomes illegal for women to terminate their pregnancies, there will no doubt be many a sperm donor being made to pay for half of their child's upbringing, right?
If we're going to have a culture in which sex is considered a recreational activity, we have to have options for the people we train in that vein. Kids are inundated with inappropriate behavior, and by the time they're teens, they have little respect for sex as a sacred act.
NORTH TO THE PAST!
I do HATE abortion, but who am I to say what someone else does to their body, and as i said before, the fetus is STILL part of the mom body, like it or not
I can hate abortions as well as respect a womens decision to terminate ones own pregnancy,
its called minding my own business, some people should try it once in a while!
allhaileris ~ really....... wow, that whole statement was SOOO closeminded!!! someone is off in their own little world...
Many of us that would like to see the laws changed believe in abortions in cases of rape, incest, or the mother's health, so there goes your theory of us never wanting to allow another abortion. I believe in voluntary contraception by both and either person involved. I don't believe grade schoolers need graphic sex education, but it is appropriate for teens to learn the facts about sex and procreation.
Maybe it's you jumping to conclusions.