(También en Español)
News of Note: Arizona bill declares women pregnant two weeks before conception
A new bill up for vote in the state of Arizona would ban abortions for some expectant mothers, but that’s only the start of what lawmakers have in store. If the legislation passes, the state will consider a child to exist even before conception.
Under Arizona’s H.B. 2036, the state would recognize the start of the unborn child’s life to be the first day of its mother’s last menstrual period. The legislation is being proposed so that lawmakers can outlaw abortions on fetuses past the age of 20-weeks, but the verbiage its authors use to construct a time cycle for the baby would mean that the start of the child’s life could very well occur up to two weeks before the mother and father even ponder procreating.
On page eight of the proposed amendment to H.B. 2036, lawmakers lay out the “gestational age” of the child to be “calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period of the pregnant woman,” and from there, outlaws abortion “if the probable gestational age of [the] unborn child has been determined to be at least twenty weeks.”
Conception before a couple even decides to have sex? You can’t declare something has happened before it has happened, much less make that into a law.
I’m getting really tired of seeing these religiously founded ideologies masquerading as unbiased ethical issues. If you think an embryo, zygote, or fetus should have the same rights as yourself, whatever your rationale, it’s subjective and should have absolutely no place in the law books. Punishing non-religious women because you believe their embryos have souls is unfair, unfounded, and intrusive. When are we going to pass some laws that identify and prevent religiously motivated legislature from even making it this far?
Creative Commons image by: Craig Larsen