The Right To Personhood

It guarantees the Alaska People, in aggregate, the right to privacy. But it also says “The legislature shall implement this section.”

In Roe v. Wade, Justice Potter Stewart asked the pro-abortion attorney Sarah Weddington this question: “If it were established that an unborn fetus is a person within the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment, you would have an almost impossible case here would you not?”  Mrs. Weddington replied, “I would have a very difficult case.”  Justice Blachmun then wrote, in the majority decision: “If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.”

There remains one – and only one – group of human beings in the United States today for which being human is not enough to be protected by law, by the right to privacy: A pre-born child.

If the pre-born child were to be legally defined as a person; however, then abortion would become a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment:

“… No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

In United States v. Cruikshank, the justices wrote: “The rights of life and personal liberty are natural rights of man. ‘To secure these rights,’ says the Declaration of Independence, ‘governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.’ The very highest duty of the States, when they entered into the Union under the Constitution, was to protect all persons within their boundaries in the enjoyment of these ‘unalienable rights with which they were endowed by their Creator.’ Sovereignty, for this purpose, rests alone with the States.”

Every person’s right to life must be protected by the state regardless of age, level of dependency, citizenship or even viability.  This right is a natural right granted by the Creator, and unable to be alienated by the laws of the state.

If this right is to be protected for all persons within the state of Alaska then this protection cannot be denied to any person, or human being, for any reason, not even the pre-born.

It is unlawful for a state to have a viability test, to determine whether a person’s right to life is worthy of protection.  According to the Alaska Constitution every human being’s right to life is to be protected, without exception.

In a 2007 Supreme Court case known as Gonzales v. Carhart, SCOTUS opined that the unborn child is a living individual separate and distinct from his mother. A preborn individual Human Being if you will. In this decision, the Court did not consider the preborn child to be merely a part of the mother’s body.

In another case known as Bonbrest v. Kotz which was heard in United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Justice McGUIRE stated: “From the viewpoint of the civil law and the law of property, a child en ventre sa mere is not only regarded as human being, but as such from the moment of conception—which it is in fact.”

In legal terms en Ventre Sa Mere means in the mother’s womb. For example, ‘child en ventre sa mere’ means a child in the mother’s womb. It refers to an unborn child, and is usually used while referring to that child’s rights. (definitions.uslegal.com)

In the Supreme court case known as Marbury v. Madison the Supremes wrote: “The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws, whenever he receives an injury. . . . The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.”  That decision cemented the individuality of the preborn child and guarantees him or her a civil right to claim the protection of the law; this would include the right to privacy found in the Alaska Constitution.

In another SCOTUS case, known as Reed v Reed, the Justices wrote: “The Equal Protection Clause of that amendment [referring to the 14^th amendment] does, however, deny to States the power to legislate that different treatment be accorded to persons placed by a statute into different classes on the basis of criteria wholly unrelated to the objective of that statute. A classification must be reasonable, not arbitrary, and must rest upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation, so that all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike.”

What that means is that The State of Alaska, under our constitution, does not have the authority to deny the protection of the law to a single class of individuals such as our preborn children. However, the constitution and current statutes in Alaska, grant the full protection of the law to all children except those that are aborted.  According to Reed v. Reed, this exception is a violation of the 14th amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

The medical community has long recognized the individual life of the unborn child. The science and experiments of Dr. Theodric Romeyn Beck, which can be found in Elements of Medical Jurisprudence, written more than 100 years before Roe v. Wade, illustrate for us that the pre-born child is a separate human life from the moment of conception.

Other scientists such as Keith Moore say: “[The Zygote] results from the union of an oocyte and a sperm. A zygote is the beginning of a new human being. Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm … unites with a female gamete or oocyte … to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marks the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.” (The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 6th ed. Keith L. Moore, Ph.D. & T.V.N. Persaud, Md., (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1998), 2-18)

Doctor Horatio R. Storer said: “Allowing, then, as must be done, that the ovum does not originate in the uterus; that for a time, however slight, during its passage through the Fallopian tube, its connection with the mother is wholly broken; that its subsequent history after impregnation is one merely of development, its attachment merely for nutrition and shelter – it is not rational to suppose that its total independence, thus once established, becomes again merged into total identity, however temporary.” (Horatio R. Storer M.D., LL.B., Criminal Abortion (1868))

The logic of Dr. Storer’s conclusion is irrefutable by abortion supporters and pro-lifers.  The life of the unborn Human Being begins independent of the mother’s body. If we follow the science (as we have been told to do incessantly in the last two years), it is illogical to conclude that the life of the pre-born Human Being, which was previously independent of the mother, ceases to exist during the time that he or she is in the womb. In other words, the egg, and the sperm, which are now combined, and subdividing are an independent life and do not terminate just because they have attached to the mother for nurturing and support.

When a male sperm meets a female egg, both cease to exist independently and are combined as a living human being in the earliest stage of development – conception. Every major textbook on the subject used in medical schools teaches this. This new life has separate DNA and is completely and totally separate from the mother.

Further strengthening the scientific argument is the science and practice of in vitro fertilization, in which a living human being is inserted into the womb for the support of development of the child rather than for the purpose of obtaining life.

Furthermore, the independent life of the pre-born child is again proven by the fact that it is the pre-born child who initiates implantation into the womb.  “The mother’s body is entirely passive in the implantation process.  It merely responds to the actions taken by the unborn Human Being.” (Adam Schauf, M.D., “The Growth of the Placenta,” American Gynecology (1903), 94)

Finally, our recent scientific and medical implantation of pre-born, and subsequent birth of children, who developed outside their biological mother’s womb, legitimizes the claim that the pre-born are an independent life.  If being pregnant was only a function of the woman’s reproduction organs, then implanting, carrying to term, and successful birth would be impossible outside of the womb.  The mere fact that we can do this, even in surrogates, demonstrates that the pre-born child is not just a product of the woman’s reproductive system, but is an independent, living human being.

There is no such thing as “dark” e.g., you cannot flip a switch and have dark. Instead, we flip a switch and have light; DARK is merely the absence of light.

Life is defined as the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter. We know that “life” includes the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change.

Much like “Dark,” death is defined, in many dictionaries as well as the Bible, as the absence of life. So, a fetus who dies in the womb, via a miscarriage or other means would have to have been recognized to be alive, or a living person or human being, before it can actually “die” in the womb.

Our Declaration of Independence says “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Throughout the years, various court cases have set precedence that the word “MEN,” in that document includes all people; people of color, people of other races and nationalities as well as both genders.

It is time we define “persons” for the purpose of our constitution. It is time to follow the science; to open our eyes and hearts and recognize the person-hood of the pre-born. It is time to fix our constitution and statutes.