Personhood USA - It’s not a PipeDream, it’s a Petition!!
“The next thing we must be concerned about if we are to have peace on earth and good will toward men is the nonviolent affirmation of the sacredness of all human life. …Man is a child of God, made in His image, and therefore must be respected as such….And when we truly believe in the sacredness of human personality, we won’t exploit people, we won’t trample over people with the iron feet of oppression, we won’t kill anybody.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.
Personhood is the cultural and legal recognition of the equal and unalienable rights of human beings.
Personhood is the pro-life battle-ground of the 21st century. Throughout the history of the Church the doctrinal teaching of the “Sanctity of Life” (Genesis 1:26-27) has been the belief that Man is created Imago Dei (Latin: in the image of God) and therefore has worth at all stages of life. This is the bedrock of Western civilization’s understanding and practice of human dignity.
We are told in the gospels that John the Baptist was known by God, called by God, named by God and then filled by God with the holy Spirit while still in his mother’s womb. This is an example of the biblical worldview of Personhood.
When the term “person” is applied to a particular class of humans, it is an affirmation of their individual, God given rights. In other words, to be a person is to have intrinsic value and constitutional protections and guarantees such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
This is the last thing our pro-abortion foes want, they are terrified of a baby being classified as a human being, as a person. It will nullify their entire purpose to eradicate minorities (read about Margaret Sanger and her comments regarding the “negro”) and dry up their mulit-million dollar industry of death and destruction of the human race.
Any woman who has ever been pregnant and suffered a miscarriage will tell you her loss was very very real, regardless of how soon into the pregnancy the loss occurred. She grieved, she suffered, she mourned her baby. No-one in their right mind mourns the loss of tissue, we cut ourselves every day, we lose blood and skin on a daily basis, no-one is left crushed by this “loss”. The loss, the emptiness of a miscarriage is solely related to a baby, a new person … we would never deny this to a mother in mourning.
If you doubt, look up the word “person” in any dictionary, we’ll use dictionary.com. This is what we found: ”a human being, whether man, woman, or child; a human being as distinguished from an animal or a thing”
Life begins at conception. There is no denying this fact … even Scientists and Educators and MD’s agree. Check out the following references in Princeton”s Textbooks:
“Embryo: The developing individual between the union of the germ cells and the completion of the organs which characterize its body when it becomes a separate organism…. At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun…. The term embryo covers the several stages of early development from conception to the ninth or tenth week of life.”
[Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]
“Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed…. The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity.”
[O'Rahilly, Ronan and Müller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29. This textbook lists "pre-embryo" among "discarded and replaced terms" in modern embryology, describing it as "ill-defined and inaccurate" (p. 12}]
“Almost all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote)… The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual.”
[Carlson, Bruce M. Patten's Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 3]
We could go on and on, but there is no need, the facts are out there for anyone who wants to open their hearts and minds to the truth. Propaganda and lies and the feel good moniker, “Pro-Choice” are designed to draw you in. You must be stronger than that. Everyone is pro-choice. Choice is synonymous with freedom, but your freedom, your liberty ends where it infringes upon another’s. Read the quote from Dr Martin Luther King, Jr again and again until it sets it.
A person is a human being, this fact should be enough! The intrinsic humanity of unborn children, by definition, makes them persons, and therefore, should guarantee their protection under the law.
Personhood holds the key to filling the “Blackmun Hole,” a startling admission in the Roe v. Wade majority opinion.
“If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment.” Justice Harry Blckmun, Roe v. Wade
In 1973, the science of Obstetrics was not able to prove, as it now can, that a living, fully human, and unique individual exists at the moment of fertilization and continues to grow through various stages of development until death.
Let’s not forget that in 1858 the Virginia Supreme Court decided, “In the eyes of the law … the slave is not a person.”
Throughout history, certain groups have felt the brunt of a system which denied their humanity, stripped their personhood, and subjected them to horror beyond measure. While the legal framework that made such horrors possible has now been removed, it remains firmly in place for preborn Americans.
Unborn children are the one and only group of human beings in the United States today for which being human is not enough. The inconvenience of their existence has resulted in this shameful injustice. The lies, the mistruths, the outright distortion of facts, aided by those who have a financial gain, have managed to spread their evil in ways never dreamed of by the Court in 1973.