Strategic Gains Nurture Bolder Anti-Choice Moves

Frustrated with the slow process of gradually chipping away at abortion rights through a series of restrictions to abortion, anti - choice lawmakers in Georgia recently took a bolder move.

In March they introduced the first bill in the country to amend a state constitution to define embryos and fetuses from the moment of conception as persons entitled to a right to life.

The legislation is the latest sign of a widening strategic divide within the anti - choice movement.

In recent years, those who have pushed an incremental approach to gradually restrict access to the procedure -- but not ban it altogether -- have enjoyed the upper hand. But the "personhood amendment" signals that absolutists are readying a more direct challenge to the incrementalists in their midst.

"For too long the pro - life movement has been dominated by a strategy of 'wait;' too fearful of losing to risk winning," Richard Thompson, president of the Thomas More Law Center, a Christian legal advocacy group in Ann Arbor, Mich., said in a statement. "The adoption of this amendment will place Georgia at the forefront of the battle to restore the sanctity of innocent human life."

To be sure, gaining the support of two - thirds of the lawmakers in both chambers of the Georgia Legislature and a majority of the state's voters that is required to pass the "personhood amendment" will be an uphill battle.

Even if it were to become law, the amendment would not have any immediate effect on abortion rights in the state because it does not address criminal penalties, said Josh Brahm, a spokesperson for Georgia Right to Life in Lawrenceville, Ga. And any legislation that did include criminal penalties would be blocked because the U.S. Supreme Court -- while restricting some access in its April decision banning a specific type of abortion procedure -- has continued to uphold the basic right to abortion.

Still, Kay Scott, president of Planned Parenthood of Georgia in Atlanta, says the effort to endow embryos and fetuses with legal rights -- the so - called personhood push -- should not be discounted in her state.

If it passes, Georgia's "personhood amendment" could provide anti - choice advocates legal language that could ultimately make abortion at any gestational age tantamount to murder and could eventually lead to the outlawing of everything from contraception to stem cell research to certain kinds of fertility treatments, Scott said.

"The rest of the country took a moderate turn at the last election, but Georgia sort of went to the right," she said. "It's clear they feel like it's possible they could pass something like this in Georgia."

Tactical Steps

If such an amendment were to pass in Georgia or anywhere else it could be used as a vehicle to mount a frontal legal challenge to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion, Brahm said.

Proponents of the amendment base their legal claim on a passage in the majority opinion of Roe v. Wade in which Justice Harry Blackmun said the court was not in a position to answer the question of when life begins but added that if the "personhood" of embryos and fetuses were ever established, the case for abortion would collapse under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In this view, the entire debate over abortion rights hinges on the question of personhood; if embryos and fetuses are granted that status, it would establish the legal underpinnings needed by anti - choice groups to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The Georgia amendment is the most conspicuous sign yet of the effort to recognize embryos and fetuses as persons, but the movement has seen significant under - the - radar success in recent years.

In 2002, the Bush administration issued a regulatory change to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program to include embryos and fetuses, making them separate beneficiaries of a government program, according to NARAL Pro - Choice America, an abortion rights advocacy group in Washington, D.C.