Despite denials to the contrary, it appears that anti-choice activists have convinced the Susan G. Komen Foundation to de-fund some of Planned Parenthood's breast cancer screening activities. Setting aside for a moment the bitter irony of potentially risking women's lives to "support a culture of life", I want to discuss a fundamental belief that fuels the activities of those who seek an end to reproductive rights for women: personhood. We've seen personhood amendments on the ballot in states like Mississippi recently, and such legislation is poised to sweep the nation this year. Supposing for a moment that I could accept that humans are indeed humans deserving of legal "personhood" the very instant an egg is fertilized by a sperm (spoiler alert, I don't accept that), and therefore the perfectly legal right of a woman to obtain an abortion is tantamount to murder, I think it's reasonable to also define in a newer, broader way what exactly amounts to murder in the United States of America.
According to the National Right to Life Council,
The life of a baby begins long before he or she is born. A new individual human being begins at fertilization, when the sperm and ovum meet to form a single cell. If the baby's life is not interrupted, he or she will someday become an adult man or woman.
That seems simple enough. If a fertilized egg is immediately "life", and any non-natural "interruption" of that life is "murder", then...
Making health insurance unavailable or unaffordable for the poor, which affects whether many women (particularly minority women) receive prenatal care, is murder.
Gutting public programs for poor children, and ensuring that there are more poor children in the US who lack the resources and development skills to become healthy adults who avoid illness and crime, is murder.
Cultivating a culture where children and teenagers who are anything besides straight are tortured to the point of committing suicide three to six times more often than strictly heterosexual peers is murder.
Neglecting public education systems that are failing young students and leading to declining graduation rates, which consequently leads to higher instances of poverty, crime, and other detrimental factors to the survival of non-graduates, is murder.
Using draconian sentencing guidelines to insert criminals into a prison system that is violent, overcrowded, and removes $60 billion of taxpayer money from programs that, you know, could keep people out of prison in the first place is murder.
Trying to privatize social security benefits, which many seniors rely on as their primary income source is murder if the new and dangerous risks to one's benefits result in the inability for seniors to pay for basic things like, uh, food ("lives", by the way, need food whether they're fertilized eggs or old people).
The problem is, the "personhood" crowd has spent all their time screaming about when life begins, and how important it is to protect the right of "helpless" fertilized eggs, but they don't care very much about how and why life ends so tragically for so many underprivileged, underserved, and overlooked individuals. There are millions of people who desperately need help right now, at this very instant, who have already exited their mothers' wombs. But instead of helping these people, who are so often poor, and so often lack the kinds of resources and opportunities that would lead to better care, better choices, better lives and perhaps fewer abortions, the anti-choicers are expending their considerable energy making sure these people lose their cancer screenings.
Some right to life, huh?