When the Founding Fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence more than 200 years ago, they clearly spelled out that all persons have the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and that these inalienable rights come from our "Creator."
They would be shocked to see how a series of rogue Supreme Court Justices trampled the Constitution and divided our nation over one word: life. They deny the fundamental civil rights of unborn babies.
A bipartisan coalition of the Georgia General Assembly adopted several life saving laws for unborn babies over the past three years, and now is the time to clearly define who has the right to life.
Article one of the Georgia Constitution states, "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property except by due process of law." The Human Life Amendment (H.R. 536) declares the dignity of human life from the mother's womb throughout all phases of life.
Today, our bipartisan pro-life coalition seeks to define a person as having rights from the moment of conception until natural death, without regard to age or race.
In an era where human life has become cheapened and people seem to be more concerned about mistreatment of animals than humans, it is time to evaluate our core principles. It is time to take a stand and defend innocent human life.
Throughout the world we are seeing challenges to the dignity of human life, and it's not just the brutal, gruesome, secret surgical procedure of abortion. We live in an age where bio-technical advancements outpace the political will for ethical restraint.
Oregon has legalized suicide. Cloning, genetic engineering, and trans-humanism are turning fictional Franken-science into reality. Margaret Sanger's eugenics philosophy runs rampant as Planned Parenthood annually snuffs out the lives of millions of future artists, entrepreneurs, scientists, doctors, nurses, teachers, and even lawyers.
Georgia must protect human rights of unborn babies, elderly retirees, disabled children and adults, as well as sick patients who simply need a caring heart and helping hand.
The Human Life Amendment, in and of itself, does not specifically criminalize any act. Its enactment would not automatically overturn Roe v. Wade. It would, however, proclaim the dignity of all human beings within the confines of our state constitution.
The amendment would provide a platform for future legislative, executive, or judicial action on behalf of innocent persons.
Since 1980, the Republican Party platform has called for a Human Life Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It comes as no surprise that Washington politicians could not get it done.
The year 2007 marked the 200-year anniversary of the beginning of the end of slavery in Great Britain. Perhaps our young nation could have used a diplomatic, yet uncompromising voice akin to that of William Wilberforce, but Providence granted us Webster, Clay, and Calhoun.
The antebellum triumvirate kept us out of war for a time with continuous compromise and regulation of slavery, but both sides largely avoided the obvious question: the personhood of the African.
Our nation struggled for nearly 100 years over the matter of the personhood of the African-American slave before our most tragic war. Today, after 35 years of Roe, and nearly 50 million unborn American lives lost, we should take our lesson from history. We should glean from the example of peaceful Wilberforce versus our own bloody battlefield experience.
We must provide constitutional protection for all persons, including unborn children.
The bi-partisan pro-life coalition in the Georgia House made history by introducing a Human Life Amendment to the state constitution in 2007, progressing out of the abortion-regulating strategy of the past. Now, other states such as Colorado, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Montana, Michigan, Oregon and Washington are pursuing amendments of their own.
This is an issue whose time has come. Georgia's proposed constitutional amendment would require a vote of two-thirds of the House and Senate this legislative session. Then it would go to the people of Georgia for a vote on the November ballot. Ultimately, the people would decide whether to acknowledge the personhood of all human beings.
Georgia House Rep. James Mills says, "All babies have a right to a birthday." And no matter what Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, or any other left-wing outfit may claim, this amendment is not about restricting family planning.
This is a peaceful and positive movement to restore respect for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans, starting right here in Georgia.
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Martin Scott, a state representative from Rossville, is the chief sponsor of the Human Life Amendment in the Georgia House.
To Martin Scott,
http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2008/01/07/index.html
The majority (61%) of U.S. women who have abortions are already mothers, more than half of whom have two or more children. In many cases, women choose abortion because they are motivated to be good parents. Women who have no children want the conditions to be right when they do; women who already have children want to be responsible and take care of their existing children.
"We found that consideration of motherhood issues in abortion decision-making falls into two broad areas: responsibilities for existing children and the 'ideal' conditions of motherhood," says Rachel K. Jones, senior researcher with the Guttmacher Institute. "Among those women with children, the most commonly cited reason for choosing to have an abortion was the concern that having another child would compromise the care given to existing children. Women felt that they were already stretched thin financially, emotionally and physically--and they wanted to put the children they already had front and center. Two-thirds of women who gave this answer were at or below the poverty line and received little help from their partners."
In addition, many of the women surveyed made direct and indirect references to the "ideal" conditions of motherhood, expressing the view that children are entitled to stable and loving families, financial security, and a high level of care and attention. Because the women were unable to provide those conditions at the time, they did not feel they were in a position to have a child or, if they were already mothers, an additional child.
"Many of these women were already raising children in situations that were less than ideal, and when faced with the possibility of bringing another child into this environment, they preferred to wait until they were in a better situation to be good parents," says Jones. "These women believed that it was more responsible to terminate a pregnancy than to have a child whose health and welfare could be in question."
Women's rights to choose Scott.
Beemer
By Robert Hatcher
For the Journal-Constitution
Published on: 01/15/08
I have been a physician at Grady Memorial Hospital for 44 years, in family planning for 41 years and a professor of gynecology and obstetrics at Emory for 39 years. I have seen the importance of family planning, including birth control, for the women of Georgia. I am concerned about the impending visit of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on Jan. 22, the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion. He is here to encourage the passage of House Resolution 536, supported by Georgia Right to Life.
Most Georgians are unaware of the full implications of HR 536, which designates personhood in the state of Georgia beginning at fertilization and continuing to natural death. The intention is to ban legal abortion in Georgia. Additionally, defining personhood as starting at fertilization is contrary to the medical definition of pregnancy by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which is at implantation --- when the embryo adheres to the wall of the uterus.
HR 536 would impact all hormonal methods of birth control, including birth control pills, the patch, the Nuva-Ring, injections like Depo-Provera and both currently available IUDs. It could even prevent the use of some forms of assisted reproductive technology and cast a shadow on the reporting of miscarriages.
Huckabee is coming to Georgia to highlight his support of legislation that could prevent public health facilities in Georgia from providing the contraceptives that 95 percent of women use at some time in their lives. Is this what anyone in the United States would want to see happen?
Family planning was designated one of the top 100 health breakthroughs of the 20th century by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We know, scientifically, that family planning, spacing the amount of time between the birth of children, access to prenatal care and safe, legal abortion contribute to the health of women and families.
I have never understood the lack of support and in some cases overt opposition to funding for family planning by those who oppose abortion. Currently fewer than 50 percent of Georgia's poorest women have access to subsidized family planning services. Many health departments run out of birth control supplies and have to write prescriptions for clients. There are only eight states with higher teen birth rates and seven states with higher infant mortality rates than Georgia. How sad.
I have loved my years of providing individual women with completely voluntary contraceptives, in large part because I have seen the benefits family planning has brought to women and families. If people of conscience on the other side of this issue would join forces with those of us who want to see less teen and unintended pregnancy and reduce the number of abortions, we could make it happen. There are many countries that are far more successful than we are on these issues. Canada has half as many teen pregnancies and Western Europe one fourth as many, largely because of access to sexual health information and contraceptive services.
I do not believe that private and personal issues should be decided by legislators, the state or the federal government, or frankly, by the president. We do not need a Huckabee, on his whistlestop trip through Georgia, to come and make recommendations about changing our state's constitution. We need practical and realistic policies and practices that will help our state climb out of the cellar in health status for women and children. Programs that promote prevention and wellness should be at the top of the list. An ounce of prevention is always worth a pound of cure.
Robert Hatcher, M.D., is a professor of gynecology and obstetrics at Emory University School of Medicine.