Abortion, rights and the meaning of personhood

Yet Akin, Ryan and their colleagues say the embryo-in-uterus – any human embryo – must have constitutional protection for full equality. At least, that is how the amendment projected by the 'Sanctity of Life Act' is worded. Thus female human life may be protected equally to male human life until the embryo, now developed into a fully formed fetus, is expelled from the womb. Immediately upon birth, the boy baby has full 14^th Amendment protection. The girl baby does not, and without the ERA, lacks full equality.

That Akin and Ryan do not, in their compulsion to 'make' embryos 'persons' with the rights and entitlements of personhood, simultaneously propose reintroduction of the ERA so that grown women, girl babies and girl children will have equal rights with men, boy babies and boy children, is indicative of their stand against female personhood. If they truly cared about the personhood of all US citizens – whether alive in the world, or (on their terms) alive in the womb, they would be ERA advocates. Yet most assuredly, they are not.

This failure is evident, too, in the placement of the proposed 'Sanctity of Life' amendment. The 'Sanctity of Life Act' explicitly connects 'personhood-of-embryos' with the 14^th Amendment. Hence, the embryo to be truly protected is the male embryo.

Perhaps unwittingly, in formulating the Bill for the 'Sanctity of Life Act', its proponents confirm sex/gender selection, practiced so assiduously in countries where boy babies are valued over girls and in the US by parents who favour boy children.

Although they profess to desire the bringing to term of every embryo-in-human-utero, the birth of every baby conceived by whatever method, consensual or not, and against a prospective mother's determination that she is not ready for motherhood, the framing and placement within the US Bill of Rights makes clear these GOP lawmakers' intention. It reveals their overriding concern is not for 'all' babies or putative children, not really for 'all' human embryos – but for male embryos and the boys and men these lawmakers wish to see them become.

In the end, their words are not taken out of context. They are not misspoken. They are not misunderstood. These anti-abortion lawmakers and would-be lawmakers are indeed anti-woman. They are not concerned to extend legal personhood or acknowledge women as entitled to equal rights under the law. Their concern is to ensure that women are not entitled to act autonomously in seeking healthcare untrammeled by rules generated not on the basis of medical and health knowledge, medical and health practice or medical and health rights, but by reference to fundamentalist notions of 'religion' or imposed 'morals'.

Women and others in the media who denounce these men and their supporters as misogynist make no false claim. The false claims and illegitimate conduct is in those speaking the language of 'personhood', ignoring the legal, social, economic and cultural realities of that status. So long as female US citizens are denied equal protection under the law, every word spoken by politicians denouncing abortion and claiming the (purportedly) high moral ground over embryo and foetus protection, is false. Illegitimacy lies with those refusing to acknowledge the right to life to which women are entitled, and who do nothing to advance women's right to personhood and equal protection under the law.