Birth Control Pills Are Incompatible With The Personhood Amendment
What is the Personhood Amendment? The simple answer is that the Personhood Amendment says that when fertilization occurs, a new human being has come into being. That human being has all of the rights that every other human being has. Those rights cannot be taken away and if anyone was to try, they would be held criminally accountable. Destroying a fertilized egg becomes murder and that is the reason that the birth control pill would be outlawed.
While birth control pills are not intended to destroy fertilized eggs, they do. The pill is designed to stop the release of eggs from the ovaries, and if eggs are not released, they cannot be fertilized, but it is common knowledge that some eggs get released and can be fertilized. The hormones in birth control pills cause the lining of the uterus to become too thick or too thin for any fertilized egg to attach itself to the uterine wall and if a fertilized egg cannot attach, the fertilized egg cannot become a fetus.
The IUD acts in much the same way, at the very least making the uterine wall incapable of holding a fertilized egg.
But the Personhood Amendment only concerns itself with fertilization. Once that egg is fertilized, whether it attaches or not, the Personhood Amendment says the egg is a person. Doing anything to stand in the way of that egg from attaching to the uterus becomes murder.
Of Rubbers And Rhythm
Abortion is the reason that there has been a push for the adoption of the Personhood Amendment in the United States. According to most opinion polls in this country, roughly half of the country supports a woman's right to choose abortion and the other half are opposed to abortion rights. Of those opposed to abortion, many support abortion in cases of rape, incest or the health of the mother. The Personhood Amendment would not allow for those exceptions.
Along with outlawing hormonal contraception, the Personhood Amendment would criminalize any and all abortions in this country, and for the people who are opposed to abortion in any and all cases, the loss of contraception rights seems to be collateral damage. Those who support the Personhood Amendment have repeatedly said, in their defense of the Personhood Amendment, that they are not opposed to contraception, yet, when faced with the science that hormonal contraception can and does cause abortions, they have no clear answers.
Years ago, before condoms were called condoms, they were called rubbers and since the Personhood Amendment would effectively transport us back in time, the old world word 'rubbers' is appropriate. Rubbers would still be legal and the rhythm method of contraception would again become the norm. Neither are extremely effective. Male condoms, according to the American Pregnancy Association, have a 15% failure rate. That means that 15 out of every 100 women whose partners use condoms will become pregnant. WebMD says that the rhythm method is only 75% to 87% effective. You can do the math.
The Politics of Personhood
The two major political parties in the U.S. have differing views on the Personhood Amendment. Democrats are opposed to it and the Republicans endorse it so much that they included it as a part of their Republican platform.
The Ability To Plan Your Family Is The Economy, Stupid!
A full 28% of all of the women in this country use hormonal contraceptives. Out of those women who are of childbearing age, roughly aged 15 to 44, 68% use hormonal contraceptives. Most do so in an effort to plan their families.
I have made an attempt here to give the facts minus too much personal opinion, but the facts have been given. I go on record to say that it is my firm belief that the freedom to plan a pregnancy is not just about should we have a baby or not. It is also about the economics. Babies cost money, pregnancy costs money, childcare costs money and women being out of work costs money. Just how many American families can afford to have or even want to have an unlimited number of children?
In the 1950's, most families averaged 3.8 children. The average today is 2 or slightly under. One of the reasons the birth rate has decreased is because the pill became widely available in the 1960's. Today, the continent of Africa is the only area in the world that averages more than 3 children per family. Why? The pill is largely unavailable.
Passage of the Personhood Amendment guarantees to end any reproductive choice that is currently enjoyed by all American women and it is not just about abortion.