48 Issues

In response to the readings for September 24, Lynn Paltrow’s presentation, and reading several other responses, I feel that I have quickly learned a lot about Amendment 48. Just like the general voting population, up until this point I honestly knew relatively little about it. In an ideal society everyone would be more knowledgeable about what is going on and actually do their homework in order to make a more educated decision. However this is far from reality. I think Sarah raised a valid point in saying that, “…on the surface trying to protect babies seems like an amazing thing to do,” but then again, I agree that this does not consider the potential repercussions of such an act and how it would impact American culture and society as a whole. Furthermore, as I continued reading, I decided to check out the comment posted on Raishel’s blog and followed the link left by Diana Hsieh, Founder, Coalition for Secular Government. Although I got a little side tracked, out of curiosity I decided to print it out and read it. (Way to go Raishel, bonus points for getting someone outside the class to comment on your blog!)

Now, in an effort to expand on this, the article, Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters That a Fertilized Egg Is Not a Person, by Ari Armstrong and Diana Hsieh, raises some more issues to consider. (Once again, the link for it if anyone else is interested is, http://www.SecularGovernment.us/docs/a48.pdf .) For instance, it would impact Section 31: Person defined, along with Section 3: Inalienable rights, Section 6: Equality of justice, and Section 25: Due process of law. In conjunction with this, Chelsea’s question about how it will affect women who choose to undergo an abortion mentions the reality that a pregnant lady faces the potential of being convicted of murder and going to jail. As if that is not crazy enough, then what would happen to a woman who miscarries or possibly gives birth to a still born regardless whether it be intentionally inflicted or a twist of bad fate and simply of natural causes? In this instance then under Amendment 48 would it seriously be possible to prosecute and criminally charge her? Furthermore, in an even more drastic way of fully upholding Amendment 48’s commitment to protecting the lives of the unborn, then could the government really go after pregnant women who clean house, drink coffee, and exercise simply based on the fact that all these everyday activities may pose a potential harm to the unborn baby “according to law.” Amendment 48, if passed would by far extend past protecting babies but infringe on the 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade, terminating the rights of those who may be pro-choice, outlaw many commonly practiced forms of birth control, threaten the operation of reproductive clinics and ban medical research such as stem cell research. In conclusion, this would all be at the expense of overstepping liberty and aborting the rights of an expectant mother’s life and body to ultimately place a value on pregnant women as a whole to simply serving as the vessel for “the law” to protect in the best interest of the newly developing, speechless, unaware “person.”