It’s been almost one year since the state of Illinois passed the Reproductive Health Act on June 12, 2019. Supportive legislators applauded, and the governor grinned as he signed the bill that implicitly allows abortion up until birth*, and explicitly declares that a fetus has no rights. In the zero-sum relationship between a pregnant woman and her fetus, the state has granted 100% of the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to the mother, and zero to the unborn child. Once a baby is born, presumably the state will defend its rights. Until that moment of birth, however, “Illinois is the most progressive state in the nation” on the issue of abortion, our governor crowed at the bill signing. That strikes me as a disturbingly Orwellian definition of progress.
If the birth canal is the line of demarcation for human rights, it’s worth considering other examples in our history when we drew a line to separate certain people from their humanity. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 declared that north of the 36th parallel, black people were people. South of that line, black people were property. Today we recognize the absurdity—and the immorality–of such legal reasoning. Or consider Native American reservations, or redlined neighborhoods, or sundown towns. Many arguments have been fought, and blood has been shed, over the idea that location should not determine a person’s humanity and equal protection under the law.
The governor and progressives might counter that rights are not granted to a fetus because it has not yet been born, not because of its location (in the womb). That is, the action of birth bestows personhood. Using that logic, then prior to the action of birth, what is the fetus? A collection of cells? A mass of tissue? A benign tumor? Of course not. By 12 weeks of fetal age, all the major human organs are formed. Surgery can be performed on a fetus between 18 and 30 weeks of fetal age to correct or mitigate a host of developmental problems in the lungs, heart, bladder, and spine. Recently, researchers published a paper in the Journal of Medical Ethics arguing that fetal pain cannot be ruled out prior to 24 weeks of development.
Still undeterred, the progressives might argue that the fetus isn’t a person because it isn’t viable outside the womb. If viability is the measure of personhood, then Illinois can save itself the trouble of protecting the rights of toddlers. They certainly cannot survive—they are not viable–without life-giving support from adults.
The most glaring legal contortions can be found by comparing language in the Reproductive Health Act– a fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent rights under the laws of this State—with language in Illinois’ feticide laws. Illinois prosecutes as murder or manslaughter the death of an unborn child, and defines an unborn child as any individual of the human species from fertilization until birth. I suspect that even Orwell would tip his hat to such blatant doublespeak.
*The Illinois Reproductive Health Act allows abortions to be performed after viability of the fetus if necessary to protect the health of the mother. An earlier Supreme Court decision, Doe v Bolton, clarifies that “health” refers to “all factors—physical, emotional, psychological, familial and the woman’s age—relevant to the well-being of the patient.” Such a broad definition of health negates any potential limits on the stage of pregnancy during which an abortion can legally be performed.
