It’s a leap, but ISTM the OP is looking for leaps else the simple answer that “life would be just like it was pre-Roe” would be about it. Not extreme leaps, but leaps none the less.
So, leaping here (and acknowledging yon leap), I would argue on behalf of the state that it has the acknowledged power to mandate reporting of births. Though I’m cite-less, I dare say current state laws would prohibit Mrs. Devil and me from producing another Dudeling, birthing at home, schooling at home, etc., and never informing the state. This would merely move the date of informing the state from birth to conception.
Yeah, but banning home pregnancy kits? Can I get a stipulation that an outright doctor’s visit isn’t actually necessary–a mandated reporter doesn’t need more than a certification to read a pregnancy test (which, according to some commercials, can be damn hard to read!)? This makes the trip a much lesser burden, and allows focus on the bannign of the kits, not the overall (and ancillary) hassle.
Who is doing the banning? Is this a Federal or a state banning? Can I ask for a further stipulation that whatever agency is doing the banning (if it is an executive agency), they have the legislative authority to do so? I’d hate to get bogged down in regulatory law and bicker over whether or not the FDA has the proper mandate–that seems hand-wavable by saying either congress passed the law in question or granted explicit authorization to the requisite agency.
I’m not seeing a Constitutional issue here. Is there a Constitutional right to a test? The state has long-established powers to keep all sorts of things out of our hands with merely a rational basis for the law. That the state could express such an interest in being informed of pregnancies could possibly be done today without the need for the OP’s hypothetical (political will notwithstanding).
Since the U.S. Constitution (we are assuming that this is taking place in the U.S., though with Harper and the Theocons around that’s not a certain thing) states that “All persons **born **or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States,” unborn persons would not be citizens, and therefore be undocumented aliens! :eek:
Really? Have you ever had a miscarriage? I’ve met very few women who have miscarried who didn’t mourn the loss. Men often don’t understand this, nor do women who have never been pregnant.
I’m sorry, I’m not sure why the registration itself has to be a human right.
Assuming I was working on a brief in support of the law (for simplicity’s sake, let’s just assume it’s a state law duly passed by its legislature), my first step would be to research current law regarding registering births in general. I’d look to the rationale and support used to support those laws in the face of any challenges posed to it. Since at the moment I’m assuming such laws exist and have survived testing (an assumption that should be easy to support or break, but I can’t find squat at the moment), it’s not that much of a leap to apply that same rationale–previously applied to an infant–to a small bit of tissue. Under the terms of the OP, the only legal difference between an embryo and an infant is location.
This turns, of course, on the legislature having the political will to enact such a law. While it’s easy to say that they never would, that exta-country abortions, that the eventual doctor’s visits fill the same role, or fear of mother’s mishandling would never rise to that level, it’s just as easy to say that not all laws are made with common sense in mind. An ugly race between right, far right, and fringe right in a right wing state could tip the balance—imagine for a moment the campaign ads that would run against someone who voted against such a law. Not that cheap political shots and crap like that is exclusive to the right, but in general that’s how the choice question sets.
But that’s addressing defending the law once passed. Perhaps Bricker meant (and you’re reading) the question as what, after the courts made the human rights determination, would force the government’s hand and compel them to make such a law.
Standing issues aside, I would approach this from an equal protection/due process perspective. Citing the list of benefits that accrue to and harms avoided by infants and young children as a (admittedly tenuous) result of registration, I would argue that now that the court has recognized embryos, infants, toddlers, teens, and old fogies as possessing relatively equal levels of human rights it is an equal protection issue to not extend those benefits to embryos (or protect them from harm) with the same verve as the state extends to born children.
The problem with refuting this statement is that you have only to point back at your first claim… “Yes, but as I said, it’s a leap - I acknowledged the leap!”
Unquestionably, a state would have the power to compel mandatory reporting of births, although I can’t find a state that does so now (after an admittedly brief attempt). But your “leap” is to assume that somehow the state legislators become robotic automotons, unable to distinguish between born infants and embryos for the purposes of registering new people.
The purposes, in other words, of a state requiring registration of new babies don’t apply at all to new embryos, and to claim otherwise is to paint the lawmakers as glassy-eyed idiots, marching with their arms stretched out before them mumbling, “But they’re babies!”
Not only would woman who expressed a desire to have a miscarriage be monitored, but they would also be declared “unfit mothers” and be forced to give up their babies for adoption.
Since more babies would be adopted, and adoption is a causation factor in creating serial killers, the rates of serial killing would increase.
What if the court granted robotic automatons the status of human rights?
I’m not struggling to find a tit-for-tat refutation in anything. Perhaps I approached the question from a could and you were looking for a will; I don’t know.
I’m also not sure that the leap was all that big. I agree that it’s too far to suggest that the government would end up putting pregnant women deemed at risk of getting an abortion in a monitored facility. But I don’t think various rationales for mandating reporting is too far outside of mainstream anti-abortion thinking. I don’t mean Snidely Whiplash rationales or other nasty things. Rather, it is well within the purview of the state to ensure that children are well cared for. Knowing that a child exists—whether embryonic or infantile—furthers that end, even if the response is as mild as making sure pregnant women are provided with literature or vetted for needs-based medical care. I don’t think you need a robot to get there.
I’m impressed. You made it to post 29 before bringing in this gleaned-from-true-crime-novels hobby horse.
The legal ramifications of the change could be all sorts of things. But since I don’t think it would be a sincerely held belief of very many people, I think it’s likely that there would be occasional court cases that create a splash, a lot of fearmongering, and little else.
Alternatively, the courts could rule that from conception on a fertilized ovum is legally a person BUT the killing of a person who is currently inhabiting your womb without permission (or doing so on behalf of the person with the relevant uterus), unlike most* other willful killing of legal persons, does not constitute a crime.
there are a few other exceptions. being a soldier in wartime, being the person who carries out executions in capital punishment cases, being the doctor in euthanasia situations where assisted suicide is legal, etc.
Actually, a bill (Utah HB 12) that would criminalize miscarriage passed Utah legislature. It was vetoed by Utah’s governor, but there were still enough people who thought this appropriate that it was only one step away from becoming law. It’s not just science fiction.
However I think the more likely outcome would be that providing abortions, as well as Plan B, would have criminal penalties.
Annie-Xmas, unless I’m misreading your OP, the scenario you describe seems to be a result of a law that would make an egg a human being, which is not, to my knowledge, desired by anti-abortion activists.
Not true. Not even the ACLU’s interpretation – a decidedly liberal one – says that it would criminalize miscarriage. Even their leftist interpretation merely states that miscarriages could be investigated. Obviously, this is not the same as saying that they would be criminalized.
