WilLaVeist.com

Authors: HamptonRoads.com | PilotOnline.com

Del. Bob Marshall's advocacy of this particular draft, copied almost word for word from a 1986 statute approved in Missouri, is a repeat of last year's effort, when a bill passed the House but failed in the Senate. The latest version, HB1, has a better chance in the Senate this year, with Republicans in control and with the most senior member of the chamber, Democratic Sen. Charles Colgan, as a patron.

Marshall has made no secret of his goal of entirely reversing Roe. But he insists this particular bill wouldn't do that because its expansion of rights to every stage of human development is "subject only to the Constitution of the United States and decisional interpretations thereof by the United States Supreme Court and specific provisions to the contrary in the statutes and constitution of this Commonwealth."

The point being that those rights extend only as far as permitted through efforts to erode the principle of the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973. Which is why lawmakers have continued their more immediate assault on abortion by backing various other measures this year.

Those included a bid to ban abortions after 20 weeks of gestation, except in cases where the mother's health is at risk. It failed after Republican Hampton Roads' Sen. Harry Blevins declined to support it in committee.

Other measures have found more success, including requirements that a woman submit to an ultrasound and wait at least 24 hours before terminating a pregnancy, and a measure denying public funds for abortion in cases where a doctor certifies there is a "totally incapacitating" deformity or disability.

There's a reason that similar personhood efforts have failed in other states, including last fall in Mississippi. The more people consider the impact of such legislation - on abortion, and on the expansion of government - the more they realize the dilemma it presents.

If conferring the status of person applies to a fertilized egg, how will that affect access to certain methods of contraception, including intrauterine devices?

When do the rights of the unborn supersede those of the mother?

And, specifically and perhaps most vexing for this General Assembly, should Virginians' right to privacy extend into the womb?

If so, how does that affect the proposal, approved by the General Assembly and waiting for Gov. Bob McDonnell's signature, to require women to submit to an ultrasound before having an abortion?

HB1 notes that it applies to, but isn't limited to, a section of state law pertaining to action in the event of a wrongful death. So it could apply in literally every other section of state law. In other words, it's a morass, a basis for legal contortions of epic proportions while trying to boil a complex and agonizing issue into a simplistic assertion that a fertilized egg is a person with the same rights as every Virginian.

Read more http://hamptonroads.com/2012/02/personhood-fertilized-egg