HB1572: Renee Stromme, Executive Director, North Dakota Women’s Network

Imagine a law declaring that upon becoming pregnant a woman loses her right to bodily integrity, life and liberty. Sound far-fetched? Unfortunately the answer is, not at all. In fact such a law has passed in the North Dakota House of Representatives. House Bill 1572 declares that it is the legislature’s intention that any state law using the word individual or person “includes any organism with the genome of homo sapiens.” The Bill’s Sponsor, Dan Ruby argues that 1572 “is very simply defining when life begins, and giving that life some protections under our Constitution—the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Most view HB1572 as a step toward outlawing abortion, what they aren’t mentioning is that if it passes it will hurt all pregnant women and create unprecedented dangers to both maternal and fetal health.

Constitutional law ensures that people, including pregnant women, have the right to make their own health care decisions. Yet, cases from across the country make it clear that if fetuses are recognized as legal persons, pregnant women could very likely lose these constitutionally protected rights. That’s because laws like Bill 1572 enable the state to intervene in pregnant women’s lives in ways that are dangerous to both pregnant women and their children.

For example, Amber and John Marlowe found this out when Marlowe went into labor with their seventh child. She did not believe she needed a cesarean section and did not want to subject herself or her unborn child to unnecessary surgery. The hospital disagreed with both mother and father, and using the argument that the unborn child had a right to life, obtained a court order giving it custody of the fetus before, during, and after delivery, and the right to force Marlowe to undergo invasive surgery. Before the order was issued, Amber Marlowe (still in active labor) fled to another hospital. There, Amber delivered a healthy baby naturally.

Angela Carder was not so lucky. Twenty-seven years old and 25 weeks pregnant, Angela Carder, became critically ill. She, her family and her attending physicians agreed on treatment designed to keep her alive for as long as possible. Nevertheless, the hospital called an emergency hearing, and based on claims of fetal rights, ordered a Cesarean section, despite the fact that it could kill Ms. Carder. The surgery was performed, the pre-term infant survived for only two hours and Ms. Carder died two days later with the cesarean surgery listed as a contributing factor.

In Florida, fetal rights arguments provided the grounds for sending an armed sheriff to the home of Laura Pemberton a woman who was attempting a vaginal birth after having had a previous a c-section. The sheriff took her into custody, strapped her legs together and forced her to go to a hospital where the state’s lawyer argued on behalf of the unborn child’s rights. She, however, was left to defend her decision on her own while in active labor. The judge ordered her to undergo the unnecessary surgery. When she sued for violations of her civil rights, she was told, in effect, that she had none.  Ms. Pemberton’s subsequent natural births disproved the state’s claim that her medical decision-making was an act of “bravado” and a threat to the rights of the unborn.

In each of these cases, the state intervention was based on the claim that fetuses had separate legal rights — exactly the ones Bill 1572 would establish in North Dakota. In none of these cases did the forced interventions or deprivations of liberty actually protect mothers or babies.

During my own personal birthing experience last April, the attending physician forced pitocin on me after only four hours of labor, despite significant progress. My protests were not heard. I was literally told I had no choice. There was no medical need what-so-ever for labor inducing drugs.

Many women, including those who oppose abortion, believe they should not lose their rights to make medical decisions for themselves and their children because they are pregnant or are in labor. If the Bill passes, North Dakota’s courts will have jurisdiction whenever doctors or family members disagree with a pregnant woman’s medical decisions. As the examples make clear, women’s right to bodily integrity, due process, and even life itself will disappear in the face of fetal personhood claims.

To oppose the recognition of fetal personhood as a matter of state law is not to deny the value of potential life as matter of religious belief, emotional conviction or personal experience. Rather, it is to recognize that re-writing the state’s law to extend all rights to the unborn from the moment of fertilization will exclude women from the moment they become pregnant.

Renee Stromme

Executive Director

North Dakota Women’s Network