'Personhood' bill defeated in North Dakota Senate

[Ilsa]

Source: Yahoo News -- Associated Press

BISMARCK, N.D. – North Dakota's Senate has rejected legislation to bestow human rights on fertilized human eggs, whether they be in the womb or in a laboratory.

Senators voted 29-16 Friday to reject legislation that sought to define as a human being "any organism with the genome of homo sapiens." The "personhood" status would include a developing embryo from the moment of conception, whether inside or outside the womb.

snip

Sen. Curtis Olafson, a Republican, spoke out frequently against the bill, saying it would make it difficult for doctors to treat problem pregnancies that could threaten the woman's life because both she and her unborn child would have equal status under the law.

At a Senate hearing on the legislation, two reproductive endocrinologists testified that the bill would complicate the practice of in vitro fertilization, which involves removing eggs from a woman's body, fertilizing them in a laboratory, and implanting a fertilized egg inside the womb.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090404/ap_on_re_us/abortio ...

[bliss_eternal]

1. This is awesome news...!

Thanks for the post, Ilsa!
(...and good to see you, here...!:hi:)

[ismnotwasm]

2. Thank goodness

These types of legislation are just so weird.

[Control-Z]

3. Great news!

This bill had me worried. The implications, had the bill passed, would have been worse than even a full ban on abortion. When a Republican argues against an anti-woman bill, you know it has to be bad. I don't know all that much about Sen. Curtis Olafson, but I'm grateful for his position on this one.

[ThomCat]

4. That is wonderful!

:woohoo:

This piece of shit legislation has been constantly bothering me since it was announced. It had too much potential to really set a bad precedent.