Law professor Carliss Chatman follows the "logic" of the recently enacted Alabama law virtually ending abortion rights to its "logical" conclusions:
Alabama has joined the growing number of states determined to overturn Roe v. Wade by banning abortion from conception forward. The Alabama Human Life Protection Act, as the new statute is called, subjects a doctor who performs an abortion to as many as 99 years in prison. The law, enacted Wednesday, has no exceptions for rape or incest. It redefines an “unborn child, child or person” as “a human being, specifically including an unborn child in utero at any stage of development, regardless of viability.”
Child support starting at conception? Sure!We ought to take our laws seriously. Under the laws, people have all sorts of rights and protections. When a state grants full personhood to a fetus, should they not apply equally?
Claim a fetus on your taxes? Makes sense!
Deporting a pregnant immigrant with an American citizen/fetus in her womb? Better not!
How about detaining that pregnant immigrant's American citizen/fetus without arraignment or trial? Unconstitutional!
How about counting that American citizen/ fetus in the census? Now you're talking!
It's an interesting read showing the absurdities of the Alabama law beyond, for example, the brutality of having no exceptions for rape or incest and criminalizing a medical procedure. The application of the 14th Amendment's definitions of personhood and citizenship is the foundation for what would become an issue for the courts:
... States have been allowed to define the personhood of unnatural creatures — such as corporations — since very early in our nation’s history. In exchange for this freedom, states are not permitted to go back on their deal. In other words, once personhood rights are granted, a state may not deny life, liberty or property without due process, nor may a state deny equal protection under the law. States have never had the right to define the personhood of people. This was a subject — influenced either by place of birth or by complying with immigration and naturalization requirements — for the Constitution and federal law. State grants of natural personhood challenge this norm.Since different states have laws that protect women's reproductive rights (eg., New York), applying the "logic" in the Alabama law in a post- Roe world would lead to the unintended consequence of what Chatman calls a bonkers system of "two- tiered fetal citizenship" across the country. It's a timely and thought- provoking article. Go read! (h/t FOB P.E.C.)
BONUS: Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog has more on Chatman's op/ed.
