Latest News on Alabama Personhood

CNN Interview: Personhood Rights of Babies with Drug-Abusing Mothers

Personhood Alabama Director Ben DuPré recently appeared on CNN Newsroom with Randi Kaye to talk about women who illegally expose their unborn children to drugs, which in Alabama is a crime called "chemical endangerment of a minor." Just as pregnant women do not drink alone, they don't abuse drugs alone either. States should give equal protection of the law to born and unborn children, as Ben noted in a New York Times Magazine article on this topic. CNN interview is below:

Personhood Alabama Calls on Senate Bill 5 to be Strengthened to Include All Human Life From Fertilization

May 1, 2012

Tomorrow the Senate Health Committee will hold a public hearing on Senate Bill 5, a bill that would amend the Alabama Code to define "persons" as "any human being from the moment of fertilization and implantation into the womb." 

Personhood Alabama calls on the Senate Health Committee, however, to amend the bill to protect all human life from conception (fertilization), not implantation.



Biology: As a matter of biological fact, a separate, unique human being is formed at fertilization, complete with its own DNA, so to define a person as beginning at "implantation in the womb" is scientifically inaccurate and misleading. 

Morality: Moreover, to draw the personhood line at "implantation" rather than its true beginning--conception--leaves unprotected the tiniest and most vulnerable new human beings among us.  There are many ways to destroy embryonic human life before implantation--morning-after pill, discarding "extra" IVF embryos, for example--but no child of any age or size should be left behind and denied equal protection of Alabama's laws.

Life begins at conception. It is time for Alabama's laws to protect that life. Let's be pro-life for all life!

Come and speak up for Personhood for ALL tomorrow! And call, write, and visit your Senators and Representatives and tell them to make Personhood a priority--it's a matter of life and death! Find and contact your legislators by following this link.

Here is more information about tomorrow's public hearing.

Life--each one is worth protecting!

'180 Movie' Delivered to Every Alabama Legislator for Alabama Pro-Life Legislative Day, April 12, 2012!

Alabama Pro-Life Legislative Day 2012 was, by all accounts, a great success.  On April 12, pro-life folks from around the State gathered at the State House to encourage the Legislature to pass pro-life legislation.  Many supporters of Personhood for all unborn children came to show their support for a Personhood Amendment that would define unborn children as "persons" from conception.

We had many pro-life legislators address the crowd, including Rep. Ed Henry (below), who shared for the first time in public about his regret for having his child aborted years ago.

It was a heartbreaking testimony but also a chance for healing for a man who has a deeply-held personal conviction for defending unborn lives.

On this day, Personhood Alabama also had the privilege of distributing a DVD of the powerful pro-life video "180 Movie" to every state legislator. Here we are getting ready to go!

It was somewhat hectic trying to cover all the legislators and their offices, but we were able to meet briefly with Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard (below, right) and present him personally with a copy of "180."

We encouraged him and many other legislators to support Personhood from conception for the unborn. Thank you to all who came, called, helped, and prayed. Let's continue to demand justice and equal protection for all unborn children!

Personhood in Alabama: Do We Dare Defend the Rights of the Unborn?

The real question today is not when human life begins, but, What is the value of human life? The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother's body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law -- the same right we have. - Ronald Reagan, Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation, 1983.

Why a Personhood Amendment? Since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, Alabama and every other state has allowed abortion-on-demand for any woman, for any reason, and at almost any stage of the unborn child's life. America used to define the meaning of 'person' along racial lines; now we draw the line at the womb. Some attempts to merely regulate abortion have been upheld by the courts, and some have not; but no state has ever granted legal personhood status to the unborn child from the moment of conception. Personhood legislation finally gives equal protection of the laws to the unborn as well as the born, and from the first moment of human life.

A majority of Alabamians and Americans now identify themselves as pro-life, but still no state has dared to challenge head-on the so-called constitutional right to abortion discovered by Justice Harry Blackmun and the majority of the Supreme Court in Roe. But the Roe decision itself left the door open for states to protect the unborn:

The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a person within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. . . . If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 156-57 (1973).

Many pro-life and constitutional scholars believe this passage above is the chink in the armor of the infamous right to abortion created in the Roe decision: if the personhood of the unborn child is established at law, then the woman no longer has the right to take its life.

What does 2012 hold for Personhood? Many pro-life Alabama legislators are committed to supporting Personhood in the 2012 session. Personhood Alabama is currently working on the best language for a constitutional amendment to be put on the 2012 ballot, one that is concise, clear, and does not leave any children behind.

What can you do to support Personhood? Contact your Alabama Senators and Representatives and encourage them to support a Personhood bill that does not compromise by protecting only life after implantation. The God-given, unalienable right to life begins from the moment of conception.  It is time our laws caught up with biology and Biblical morality.  See the Personhood Talking Points for help in answering questions about Personhood.

And contact Personhood Alabama below to lend your help. Alabama, let us dare defend our right to life!

Contact

Personhood Alabama
Ben DuPré
P.O. Box 4086
Montgomery, AL 36103-4086
Phone: (334) 262-1245
Fax: (334) 262-1708
Facebook: Personhood Alabama
Twitter:@PersonhoodAL