Abortion

California Trying for Personhood Amendment? Really?

Of all of the states in the country, California seems like the last place such an effort would work.

Image: Taylor's Workshop.

Is California really trying to be the next state to give fertilized eggs the same rights as fully born humans?  Apparently so.  According to the American Independent, a move to add personhood to the state’s Human Rights Amendment, calling it the “final chapter of the Civil Rights movement.”

On Wednesday, the Union City, Calif.-based anti-abortion-rights group California Civil Rights Foundation (CCRF) announced it is submitting language to state Attorney General Kamala Harris for the “California Human Rights Amendment,” marking the latest push for a “personhood” amendment in the U.S.

The amendment is part of an ongoing campaign to amend California’s constitution to grant equal civil rights to fetuses, effectively criminalizing abortion. Due the language, the amendment would explicitly ban abortions even in the case of rape, incest or fetal anomaly.

The language submitted to the attorney general reads:

The California Human Rights Amendment recognizes the inherent human rights, dignity and worth of all human beings from the beginning of their biological development as human organisms – regardless of the means by which they were procreated, method of reproduction, age, race, sex, gender, physical well-being, function, or condition of physical or mental dependency and/or disability.

The movement’s leader says he was inspired by the premature birth of his own child.  Because a 6 month gestation preemie and an fertilized egg prior to implantation are exactly the same thing.