Personhood legislation seeks to define life as beginning at conception. This is a position that is common in medical textbooks — that human life begins at conception.
There is a clear, scientific argument for when life begins.
The Bible, if you’re a Christian at least, clearly refers to the unborn as human beings.
But science and faith be damned, according to the Des Moines Register’s editorial board.
According to the board, Personhood legislation (i.e. agreeing with science) is “extreme.” A “fetus” (unborn baby) is not its own person (despite its own set of unique DNA).
This editorial was another attack from the Register against the Iowa GOP’s pursuit of an “extreme” pro-life agenda.
The board wasted no time in blasting the “radical” idea that life begins at the beginning (conception).
“Lawmakers again insist on prioritizing an anti-abortion (pro-life) agenda that panders to extremists.”
Obviously “extremists” doesn’t mean what the Des Moines Register editorial board thinks it means. I’ve never done a formal poll, but I’m yet to hear of anyone who sent out a fetus announcement. I’ve never met anyone who held a fetus shower. And I’ve never heard anyone discuss names for their fetus.
In every circumstance, no matter what stage of pregnancy, I’ve only ever heard that clump of cells referred to as a baby. Or in other words, a (gasp) person. (Feel free to insert a second gasp if you’re feeling overly dramatic.)
The editorial continues that the Republicans are pushing for an amendment that codifies into law that women do not have the right to legal medical intervention. Again, I’m pretty sure the Register means right to legally kill an unborn child. But since liberals control the language in the media, they don’t have to actually say what they mean. They can use their code to make it sound so much better than it actually is.
Senate File 523 increases the criminal penalty for the nonconsensual termination of a pregnancy. An amendment that changed language to define an unborn person as “fertilization to live birth” has caused heartburn for heartless liberals.
The legislation doesn’t mention the word abortion anywhere. At all.
In fact, the term “abortion” is as elusive in SF 523 as a conservative is in the Register’s newsroom.
But, the Register editorial board says, the legislation is all about abortion.
It may also be centered upon unicorns as well. We’ll never know since, like abortion, unicorns aren’t mentioned anywhere in the bill.
Senator Jake Chapman (R-Adel) managed the bill’s passage in the Iowa Senate. And the Register writes that, despite what he wants to believe, a fetus is not its own person.
The Register writes “governments issue birth certificates, not conception certificates.”
Well, birth doesn’t constitute life. Couldn’t one respond by saying “governments issue birth certificates, not life certificates?”
The question that needs asked and answered isn’t when someone is born, it’s when does each individual human being’s life begin. Using the Register’s logic (careful if you do, by the way), couldn’t we say “we don’t celebrate lifedays we celebrate birthdays?”
The editorial also talks about a “concerned reader” who contacted the Register to point out a miscarriage is often referred to as a “spontaneous abortion” and medical treatment following the unintentional loss of a pregnancy could appear in health records or billing codes as an abortion.
“If a fetus is a person, perhaps miscarriages will need to be investigated.”
I’ve heard this before… and tried to remember from where. Then it hit me.
“I have concerns about women in our state who suffer pregnancy loss being investigated for a still birth and miscarriage… To have government intervene and potentially investigate what has gone horribly wrong with a woman’s body, it just disgusts me.”
Those were the words Sen. Janet Petersen (D-Des Moines) provided during a subcommittee about a month ago on the life-at-conception bill.
Now, that doesn’t mean the “concerned reader” who contacted the Register was Petersen. It just means they share the same talking points — the “concerned reader,” the Register and Petersen.
Republicans are chastised for not considering the real-world repercussions of their agenda — calling an unborn human person a human person.
These repercussions actually include concerns over constitutional rights (but obviously not the right to life) and individual liberty (which really shouldn’t concern anyone who doesn’t prioritize the right to life first).
The editorial wraps up by suggesting every pregnant woman in Iowa will need a lawyer.
For those wondering, the five-member editorial board is not made up of five rabid pro-abortion Iowa Senate or Iowa House Democrats — though they obviously play that role in the newsroom.
Realize, this same newspaper that refers to life-at-conception as radical, factually inaccurate and extreme is the same newspaper that acknowledged 55 percent of Iowans favored defining life as beginning at conception in 2018.
In essence, the Register’s editorial board is telling the majority of Iowans that they are radical, wrong and extreme.
Go watch “Unplanned” and tell me pro-lifers are extreme. Explain to me how the radicals in this debate are the people who simply believe unborn persons deserve the right to life and should not be instead sentenced to death.
For putting science on a pedestal when it comes to the coming ice age — err, global warming — err, climate change science, the Left certainly loves to ignore it when it comes to procreation, marriage, gender and life.
If Sen. Chapman’s idea that a human being is a human being beginning at the moment of conception and that person deserves the same constitutional protections afforded to every other person is extreme, well then so be it.
But make no mistake, in 10 years, 20 years, 50 years or 100 years — when ever Americans wake up and put an end to the legal killing of unborn children, know that Sen. Chapman will prove to be on the right side of science, God and history.
