The Personhood Movement and Women's Rights

As a woman and a feminist living in Mississippi, I have to comment on the personhood movement and the upcoming vote in November for Amendment 26. In this post, I discuss a short history of women’s reproductive rights in the United States, and how the personhood movement is a threat to all women, no matter their stance on abortion. In later posts, I hope to cover other issues related to this movement, reproductive rights, and the upcoming vote.

If asked, the average woman in the US today would probably say that an abortion is a legal option for any woman with an unwanted pregnancy. Unless, of course, that woman is of low-income, without health insurance, or both. Or, if that woman is a minor afraid to speak to her parents. Or, if that woman has been given inaccurate information about what an abortion is and does. Yeah, other than that, perfectly available option.

Obviously, the right to choose is not that. The right to choose barely exists. Many people feel that the 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wadewas the victory for women’s reproductive rights. But ever since that decision, politicians, anti-choice groups and activists have been taking away those same rights, bit by bit.

Roe v. Wade ultimately granted the right to have a legal abortion because the Court decided that this fell under the right to privacy (established by Eisenstadt v. Baird in 1972). The decision stated that the "right of privacy…is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.”

However, the first strike against this right came just three years later, with the Hyde Amendment. This amendment took abortions out of Medicaid health plans. As any other medical procedure, an abortion is expensive; if it’s not covered by health insurance, most low-income women have no access to it. They can either risk an unsafe, cheap abortion or carry the pregnancy to term. Strike one.

Also in 1976, Maher v. Roe was decided in South Carolina. The courts ruled that the state was not required to pay for abortions and hospitals were not required to perform them. Women would simply have to search around for someone willing to do it. Strike two.

In the 1970s and 80s, laws were passed putting more restrictions on abortions. Now, women had to have the permission of a husband, wait 24 hours before having the procedure, attend mandatory counseling in which they are encouraged not to have the abortion, and, if a minor, gain consent of a parent. Strike three. And four. And five…. I’ve lost count.

Today, the personhood movement is attempting to strip away even more rights granted by Roe. Amendment 26 aims to define life as beginning at the moment of conception. This would make abortions murder. But worse than that, by defining life in this way, we could lose birth control pills, contraceptives, in vitro fertilization. Women suffering miscarriages could be charged (and have been) with murder or manslaughter. If doctors had to choose between saving a pregnancy and saving the woman, they could end up “murderers” either way.

While the personhood movement wants to criminalize abortion, the potential consequences are far wider and deeper. More than the right to an abortion is at stake here. The right to plan a family is at stake. The right to hold off childbearing while getting through school or starting a career is at stake.

Pro-choice activists (a group I count myself in) have to stop arguing for abortion in extreme cases. It’s so easy to say, “What about the pregnant rape victim? The pregnant incest victim? Shouldn’t they have the right to an abortion, or the morning after pill?” Yes, they should. But all women should have the right to plan, and time, their families as they choose. We have to argue for all women who want control over their lives and their bodies. We have to argue for the right to live in this world as we want to. As Gloria Feldt wrote in her book War on Choice: The Right-Wing Attack on Women’s Rights and How to Fight Back:


       Having the right to choose determines whether women will find an equal place at life’s table, whether children will be truly valued, and whether everyone’s personal liberties, privacy, and bodily integrity will be safeguarded.