Pro-Choice Lawmakers Propose Legislation That's A Backdoor to Fetal Personhood

Two pro-choice state lawmakers in Ohio have proposed legislation called “Conception Begins At Erection Act,” that would make it  illegal to "discharge semen or genetic material without the intent to fertilize an embryo." 

Before we go any further, I want to point out that Buck v. Bell has never been overturned and is still the law of the land. As of 2022, 31 states and the District of Columbia have laws on the books that allow for the sterilization of disabled people against their will. And the bodies of transgender people – which includes transgender men — are heavily policed. 

If this “Conception Begins At Erection Act" is an attempt to point out the hypocrisy of those in the anti-abortion movement, then it will never work because you cannot shame people who have no shame. 

This is — quite frankly — a waste of time, energy, and my tax dollars. This legislation is not needed or useful to the abortion rights movement because it is a backdoor argument in defense of fetal personhood.

Fetal personhood is a crockpot belief that life begins at conception (in some cases, fertilization) and that fetuses are entitled to the same rights and protections under the law as people who are born. This is an extremely dangerous legal argument that would ban all abortions and puts the fetus and the pregnant person at odds as it relates to legal and healthcare matters. 

It’s the argument that Americans United for Life — “the legal arm of the pro-life movement” – is utilizing in order to pass the Abortion Abolition Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 

Mary Ziegler, a law professor and a 2023-2024 Guggenheim fellow stated: 

Some states have already recognized fetal personhood. Georgia implemented a law in 2022 that declared that a fetus over the gestational age of 6 weeks and with detectable cardiac activity, is considered a “dependent minor” and can be claimed on state tax returns.

Before he became Speaker of the House, Rep. Mike Johnson introduced the Unborn Child Support Act one month after Roe was overturned. The Act aims to allow a pregnant person to begin receiving child support payments while pregnant. 

While these may seem like good policies that are supportive of pregnant people, in these specific cases they are entirely dependent on a legal theory that claims a fetus is a human being entitled to the same protections and due process as actual, living people and would take away the bodily autonomy of the pregnant person.

What happens when the pregnant person's health is at risk, but not the health of the fetus? It’s not as simple as a person choosing to get an abortion to protect their health.  If a fetus is legally considered a person with the right to life and liberty, then an abortion would be considered murder. The law doesn’t view one persons’ life as having more value than another person. 

We’ve already seen the harm fetal personhood does as it relates to IVF. Not to mention how it can criminalize some forms of birth control like IUDs and Plan B. Pregnancy Justice — a national organization that fights back against  laws that would criminalize abortion and legally defends pregnant people charged with causing fetal harm — goes into deeper detail around all the ramifications fetal personhood laws can potentially cause around a whole host of issues related to custody,  wrongful death suits, imprisonment, and even workers compensation. 

Voters across the country — even in states with right-wing legislatures — are passing amendments to add abortion rights to their state constitutions, but that’s not stopping state officials from slowly implementing changes. In Missouri, the state legislature is straight up ignoring the will of the voters and instead making it harder to pass ballot measures and are introducing a slew of anti-abortion bills.

This is where pro-choice politicians need to spend their time and energy on. While abortion IS a part of reproductive healthcare, it doesn’t carry the same politicization as pap smears, for instance. Whether abortion should be political or not is not a question or an argument worth having: the fact of our reality is that it is. The question that lies before us is what are we going to do about it?

What we cannot afford to do is waste our time and resources on silly legislation that doesn’t do a damn thing to further abortion access.