Okay, people, let's try and recover some sanity, shall we? There is one bill with "a chance" to make it through the Legislature today that should fail. It is a "personhood" bill, i.e. it defines a "person" with respect to all state laws to begin at conception.
It's being billed as an anti-abortion law, but its implications go FAR beyond that.
Let's look at it. By defining a "person" as a fetus just having been formed, at conception, all state laws referring to a "person" (such as fraud, assault, poisoning, and murder, to name a few) are affected. If a pregnant woman does drugs and damages her fetus, is she guilty of a crime against a person? Prosecutors could make a strong argument to that effect.
Similarly, if a man kills a pregnant woman, is he guilty of two counts of murder? Let's not even look at late-trimester pregnancies... if a woman doesn't even know she is two weeks pregnant, is her murderer still guilty of two counts of murder?
EVERY law that references a "person" is affected if we change the definition of a "person." This should be clear to everyone, but supporters of the bill claim that the effect will be narrow. Personally, I think they know this argument is bunk and are lying to us in order to pass their bill. I suppose it's possible I'm wrong about that, but I don't think so.
The fact remains that you can't change an underlying definition without potentially affecting EVERY law based upon that definition. This is a bill that will have many "unintended consequences," no matter what the supporters say.
The Legislature should refuse to pass this bill... it is far too sweeping a change. I don't like it when Democrats make huge sweeping changes to our laws, and I don't like it when Republicans do the same thing.
Knock it off, children! Govern effectively and responsibly. Don't make laws to advance your own ideological agenda!!!
Thursday, June 9, 2011
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Ah, you are against "huge sweeping changes"? What do ya know, that's the definition of conservative.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't you call this redefinition of "person" for all state laws to be a sweeping change? Seems to me conservatives have little room to crow on this issue... they want to change how things are, too, just differently from the liberals.
ReplyDeleteI take that back... conservatives want sweeping changes that are SOMETIMES different from liberals. Case in point? Healthcare reform.
ReplyDeleteObama and his liberal cronies pushed Obamacare, but that was based upon Romneycare, which was pushed by the man who is right now the front-runner for the GOP Presidential nomination!
So, as can be seen, sometimes the sweeping change advocated by conservatives is almost identical to the sweeping change advocated by liberals.
In jest, not towards you, but other people that claim to be "conservative," that the definition of "conservative" is being against "sweeping change" of any kind.
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