Personhood USA Creator Blames ‘Paternalistic’ Government For Women Having Free Choice

November 7, 2011
By Wendy Gittleson
The founder of Personhood USA, the group that is attempting to declare that life begins at the time of fertilization, blames our government’s ‘paternalistic’ policies for the fact that there are abortions. Personhood USA, which could outlaw birth control as well as abortion, could also potentially criminalize women for having miscarriages. I guess the answer to paternalism is to punish all the “little girls.”

In an OpEd in USA Today, Personhood USA’s director, Gualberto Garcia Jones, writes:

Increasingly, the American people are being treated paternalistically by a government, media and public sector elite that stands in direct opposition to our traditional American values.

The Constitution, a document written to prevent tyranny, has, as Thomas Jefferson predicted, become “a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist, and shape into any form they please.”



No greater example exists of this abuse of raw judicial power than Roe v. Wade, a decision by seven unelected men to impose abortion on all 50 states.

Jones denies that the proposed amendment, Mississippi’s Initiative 26, would outlaw birth control, but the wording would suggest otherwise:

Initiative #26 would amend the Mississippi Constitution to define the word “person” or “persons”, as those terms are used in Article III of the state constitution, to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.

Some methods of birth control, like the morning after pill and the IUD, do prevent pregnancy after fertilization. It makes no exceptions for rape or incest. When a women’s life is in danger, it says this:

The fetus’ right to life is not greater than the mother’s right to life. Both would be equal. If both lives cannot be saved, then the doctor could save the mother’s life even if the fetus dies. … [A] doctor may help a woman with a life-threatening pregnancy even if the fetus dies as long as his intent was to save the mother.

The keyword in that paragraph is “may.” A doctor can choose whether he or she would rather save the woman or the fetus.

The amendment doesn’t specifically criminalize women for having miscarriages, but it’s likely that women would be put under suspicion for having an abortion if a fetus ceases to exist. The amendment is vague enough that it leaves the door open (perhaps intentionally) for judges, juries and law enforcement officials to interpret as they see fit. Could women be prosecuted for drinking while pregnant? What about driving over the speed limit while pregnant?

Les Riley, the leader of Personhood Mississippi, has even more hopes on the bill than ending abortion. He’s hoping that he’ll bring everyone around to Christianity.

“We would just ask that God would work in a way that would astonish the whole world and that it would be clear that he was the one working and not us,” Riley says. “And maybe, perhaps specifically pray not only for victory in the election, but that many people who are outside of Christ would be brought to him by our efforts — even those opposing the amendment.”

Even some in the Right to Life movement feel that the Personhood movement goes too far. Wisconsin’s Right to Life group stated that they believe the amendment wouldn’t hold up in court.

The nation will hear from Mississippi voters on the initiative tomorrow. The Personhood USA goal is to go state by state and eventually make it the law of the land by amending the US Constitution.

Tomorrow’s vote in Mississippi could go either way. A recent poll finds that 45% of voters favor the amendment and 44% are opposed.