Being a 100% pro-life Wisconsinite, Wisconsin Right to Life, like the National Right to Life, has pro-abortion "exceptions", especially when endorsing candidates for office. Wisconsin RTL and NRTL accept as collateral damage those children conceived by rape and incest. In addition, they do not take a stand against abortifacients/contraception. They compromise on the right to life--they do not strive to protect all life without exception. Only Pro-Life Wisconsin is 100% pro-life. Pro-Life Wisconsin is an affiliate of the American Life League (www.prolifewisconsin.org). Here is Pro-Life Wisconsin's statement: http://www.prolifewisconsin.org/whoAreWe.asp
I am going out on a limb here, as I am solidly in prolifewisconsin's camp...and, as I am not a gifted writer, I ask for your mercy ahead of your condemnation :-) regarding views not well explained or expressed. I do NOT claim to know what WI Right to Life is thinking (the slides are not clear to me without the speaker who uses them). However, I wonder the wisdom of encasing in law the term "personhood." Once it is written into the law, then it can be changed and ammended and re-defined. From prolifewisconsin: "Once a human being is declared a person, that individual is guaranteed certain legal rights." The problem I see is in the "declared a person." Why? We are CREATED with inalienable rights...we do not get them due to any 'declaration'...as our Declaration/Constitution so identifies. My personal opinion is that given the poor crop of judges we suffer, we need to keep out of their hands any new weapons - in this case, allowing them the chance to change WHO will be considered a "person." I think we need to put focus on the recognition that we all (at our creation) have these rights already by virtue of the law and that laws that fail to recognize this are simply unconstitutional. Admittedly, I am not well versed in all the nuances of the "personhood" movement, but, these are my current concerns. I do plan on studying the topic more and hope badgercatholic keeps us informed! Thanks!
Cheryl you are right to wonder if there are any cons to Personhood. The slides above presents some reasons. I don't have time to throw this all together right now, but from my reading I'm firmly in the personhood camp. Nobody's proposed it yet, so I'm sure we'll here more from both sides. In a nutshell, I think the real reason WRTL opposes personhood is because they think it could affect contraceptive use(which also causes abortion). That fear appears to be the driver here in my opinion.
There's alot going on right now, but expect us to hash out the details in the future. Both WRTL and Personhood folks agree that Planned Parenthood should be defunded. That's I think what the focus will be on once the squatters in Madison go home.
Pro-Life Wisconsin is not suggesting that "once a human being is declared a person, that individual is guaranteed certain legal rights." This is already the case.
Pro-Life Wisconsin merely proposes adding the pre-born to those that the state recognizes as persons so that our civil law conforms with the natural law.
See, the thing you all missed on this site is that legal experts have shown that once Wisconsin passes a personhood amendment, that amendment must be able to withstand any legal challenges to it as it becomes the law of the land, trumping even our 1849 law prohibiting abortion, which has already been repeatedly upheld by the courts. This is where WRTL has stood their ground because, and ONLY because WI has that prior law. If we did not have such an abortion prohibition already on the books, then WRTL would probably throw all of its proven resources behind the personhood amendment. The problem here is that this is one time where inaction is necessary to maintain our state's legal standing, and any action taken could VERY easily harm that standing.
Kelly, I'm doing a followup post on that subject. You might read this post for more details: http://badgercatholic.blogspot.com/2011/03/personhood-of-preborn-in-wisconsin.html
7 comments:
Being a 100% pro-life Wisconsinite, Wisconsin Right to Life, like the National Right to Life, has pro-abortion "exceptions", especially when endorsing candidates for office. Wisconsin RTL and NRTL accept as collateral damage those children conceived by rape and incest. In addition, they do not take a stand against abortifacients/contraception. They compromise on the right to life--they do not strive to protect all life without exception. Only Pro-Life Wisconsin is 100% pro-life. Pro-Life Wisconsin is an affiliate of the American Life League (www.prolifewisconsin.org). Here is Pro-Life Wisconsin's statement: http://www.prolifewisconsin.org/whoAreWe.asp
http://www.prolifewisconsin.org/files/Policy%20Paper%20_940.04.pdf
I am going out on a limb here, as I am solidly in prolifewisconsin's camp...and, as I am not a gifted writer, I ask for your mercy ahead of your condemnation :-) regarding views not well explained or expressed. I do NOT claim to know what WI Right to Life is thinking (the slides are not clear to me without the speaker who uses them). However, I wonder the wisdom of encasing in law the term "personhood." Once it is written into the law, then it can be changed and ammended and re-defined. From prolifewisconsin: "Once a human being is declared a person, that individual is guaranteed certain legal rights." The problem I see is in the "declared a person." Why? We are CREATED with inalienable rights...we do not get them due to any 'declaration'...as our Declaration/Constitution so identifies. My personal opinion is that given the poor crop of judges we suffer, we need to keep out of their hands any new weapons - in this case, allowing them the chance to change WHO will be considered a "person." I think we need to put focus on the recognition that we all (at our creation) have these rights already by virtue of the law and that laws that fail to recognize this are simply unconstitutional.
Admittedly, I am not well versed in all the nuances of the "personhood" movement, but, these are my current concerns. I do plan on studying the topic more and hope badgercatholic keeps us informed! Thanks!
Cheryl you are right to wonder if there are any cons to Personhood. The slides above presents some reasons. I don't have time to throw this all together right now, but from my reading I'm firmly in the personhood camp. Nobody's proposed it yet, so I'm sure we'll here more from both sides. In a nutshell, I think the real reason WRTL opposes personhood is because they think it could affect contraceptive use(which also causes abortion). That fear appears to be the driver here in my opinion.
There's alot going on right now, but expect us to hash out the details in the future. Both WRTL and Personhood folks agree that Planned Parenthood should be defunded. That's I think what the focus will be on once the squatters in Madison go home.
Pro-Life Wisconsin is not suggesting that "once a human being is declared a person, that individual is guaranteed certain legal rights." This is already the case.
Pro-Life Wisconsin merely proposes adding the pre-born to those that the state recognizes as persons so that our civil law conforms with the natural law.
See, the thing you all missed on this site is that legal experts have shown that once Wisconsin passes a personhood amendment, that amendment must be able to withstand any legal challenges to it as it becomes the law of the land, trumping even our 1849 law prohibiting abortion, which has already been repeatedly upheld by the courts. This is where WRTL has stood their ground because, and ONLY because WI has that prior law. If we did not have such an abortion prohibition already on the books, then WRTL would probably throw all of its proven resources behind the personhood amendment. The problem here is that this is one time where inaction is necessary to maintain our state's legal standing, and any action taken could VERY easily harm that standing.
Matt's never been told where he is wrong before.
Kelly, I'm doing a followup post on that subject. You might read this post for more details: http://badgercatholic.blogspot.com/2011/03/personhood-of-preborn-in-wisconsin.html
Anon, why don't you ask my wife that question. ;)
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