North Dakotans need to vote NO on Amendment 1

North Dakota Is Quietly Preparing To Enact The Most Radical Abortion Measure In The Country

In less than two weeks, North Dakota voters will head to the polls and cast their ballots on a radical effort to overhaul the state’s constitution and redefine legal personhood in a way that includes fertilized eggs. Polling indicates that the fight over Amendment 1 will be close, potentially making North Dakota the first state in the country to enact a radical “personhood” measure — something that abortion opponents have been attempting to do for four decades. But hardly anyone is talking about it.

In September, reporting on the ballot measure for Cosmopolitan, writer Robin Marty described Amendment 1as “the abortion amendment America forgot.” When she talked to residents in North Dakota, most of them had never heard of it.

“I do find it really interesting that this has kind of flown under the radar during the election season,” Elizabeth Nash, the senior states issues associate at the Guttmacher Institute, told ThinkProgress in an interview. “Certainly, I know people are very focused on the U.S. Senate and the governors’ races, but I’m not quite sure why this issue hasn’t come up more. If this passes, it will have a ripple effect — certainly in the state, and maybe even further.”

That wasn’t the case when the North Dakota legislaturefirst passed this legislation in March 2013. When lawmakers voted to put Amendment 1 on this year’s ballot, there was a widespread understanding that the measure was designed as a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade. The bill’s sponsor was frank about that ultimate goal, and reproductive rights groups were outraged about the passage of such an extreme attack on women’s legally protected right to choose.

Fast forward to this fall, however, and there doesn’t appear to be as much concern about North Dakota. Most of the national attention has been focused on candidates in Colorado who are attempting to change their positions on personhood, as well as some discussion about whether supporting personhood spells doom for Republicans running in races across the country this year.

Amendment 1 may be flying under the radar because it doesn’t specifically mention abortion, birth control, or conception. It’s an extremely vague measure, saying only that “the inalienable right to life of every human being at any stage of development must be recognized and protected.” In fact, its supporters have pointed to the broad language as proof that Amendment 1 isn’t a personhood measure at all, claiming it has nothing to do with redefining life.

Team Forced Birth is being extremely sneaky with this one.  They’re hoping people won’t recognize that it’s a bill to enshrine the concept of personhood into the North Dakota constitution. If successful, this would mean that pregnant women lose the right to make choices concerning their bodies for nine months. They won’t be able to obtain an abortion, even if its to save their life. And of course, since pregnancy is 14 times deadlier than an abortion, pregnant women across the state will face greater, not fewer risks to their health. As I said elsewhere:

It’s a shame that not enough people realize this, but even IF a fetus is a person with all the rights that being a person entails–
No one has the right to use another’s body without their permission. That includes a fetus. I can’t take blood from someone or take their kidney without their consent bc of their right to bodily autonomy. That same right extends to women’s bodies. A fetus does not have the right to use a woman’s body, even if it is necessary for them to exist. That is simply not a right that any human being has. I hope it never will be, because then we’re right back to the days of slavery when human beings didn’t own their own bodies.
Of course anti-abortionist/fetus worshiping/forced birthers want exactly that. They want women to be forced to carry a fetus to term, whether they choose to or not. They can make all the claims they want, but THAT is the end result. It’s not hard to see this when you understand that the Team Forced Birth also oppose contraception. They don’t want women having sex with contraception, and they want women who become pregnant to carry the fetus to term (for some on Team Forced Birth, this applies even in the case of rape or incest).

(edited to fix my geographical error in the title and my comments)

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North Dakotans need to vote NO on Amendment 1
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