A debate in the Missouri House Committee on Children and Families got an unexpected comedy break in the process. GOP Representative Mike Moon declared that since he was an embryo that makes him a qualified reproductive health expert, and that he knows what he is talking about when he is declaring a fetus a person.
Yes, you read that correctly! Yes, people laughed in his face. The debate was over House Joint Resolution 98, which is a personhood bill giving embryos constitutional protections at “every stage of biological development.”
Opponents of the bill thought that it would get struck down because Roe v. Wade gives women right to privacy in decisions made with their doctors, including the decision to terminate a pregnancy. Moon still said that fetuses should have rights. He opened the hearing with a video of a fetus that had developed enough that it had human characteristics such as a hand and a face.
Just in case you didn’t think this is stupid enough, Moon compared abortion to the enslavement of African Americans.
A St. Louis family physician, Ed Weisbart testified that there is not a scientific consensus on when life begins.
For the constitutional side of the argument, the 14th Amendment says that “all persons born” are granted citizenship. The Constitution does not consider unborn fetuses as persons.
So, these conservatives want to fund this battle and cost the state millions of dollars because the Supreme Court would be duty-bound to overturn the bill.
These MEN need to get these laws off of women’s bodies. This bill would ban abortion if passed, so the mothers would have their rights of due process and equal protection taken away.
Also, this guy’s idea of an embryo being a person goes against the Bible that these Republicans keep thumping.
Here is one verse saying that infants less than one month are not considered persons:
Number the children of Levi after the house of their fathers, by their families: every male from a month old and upward shalt thou number them. And Moses numbered them according to the word of the LORD. — Numbers 3:15-16
And here is one where God is calling for killing newborns:
Because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. — 2 Samuel 12:14
So, being a former embryo does not make anyone a doctor. This guy is on a whole different level of stupid.
Featured image by Debra Sweet via flickr, available under Creative Commons 2.0 license.
