North Dakota Legislators Agree, Eggs Aren't People

Last week, North Dakota's Senate defeated legislation that would have defined a fertilized egg as a person. It was a win for the pro-choice movement, but perhaps what was most surprising was not that the legislation was defeated - the personhood movement is considered extreme even within the anti-choice movement - but how it was defeated. 

When the House first considered the bill, Planned Parenthood represented itself in the House Committee hearing on the proposed legislation, known as HB 1572. Tim Stanley, senior director of government and public affairs for Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, testified after 90 minutes of anti-choice rants that the passage of such legislation would be expensive, unconstitutional, and unwise.  

By the time the bill had been revised and the State Senate held a hearing on the issue, some things had changed. The Catholic bishops in state put up some soft resistance, releasing a statement that said, "We agree with the goal of establishing the full legal recognition of the right to life of every unborn child from the moment of conception and will never waver from that objective ...While opinions can vary, it is apparent to us that HB 1572, as written, raises many unanswered questions, could lead to unintended consequences and injustices, and would not achieve the goal of providing a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade and its progeny."  

When even Catholics are opposing the personhood bills, it is evident that there is division within the anti-choice movement about the strategy. Still, Stanly thinks the legislation was outrageous enough on its own. "Certainly the bill would have been more difficult to defeat if the other mainline groups had been involved in it," Stanley said, "but I think overall it was the fact that this bill just went too far and got into areas they just did not feel comfortable regulating." 

Then the state's second-largest paper, the Grand Forks Harold, which isn't exactly known for its liberalism, wrote an editorial opposing HB 1572. The headline read, "‘Personhood' bill in N.D. goes much too far." The largest paper in the state, the Fargo Forum, ran a reported article that pointed out many questions raised by the proposed legislation. 

The Senate hearing, according to Stanley, was very different than the initial hearing on the bill in the State House. This time, Planned Parenthood representatives didn't even testify. Instead, they called in an in vitro specialist, a constitutional lawyer, and a religious leader to oppose the bill. In other words, the arguments about the bill didn't even include defending the right to abortion or abortion access. "We really stayed away from it, just really feeling like our best arguments to defeat this thing were not necessarily about abortion," Stanley said. 

Ultimately, the strategy of PPMNS was effective. The North Dakota personhood bill was defeated, 29-16, after getting a 5-0 recommendation from the Senate Judiciary Committee of "do not pass." 

Immediately following the vote on HB 1572, however, the legislature passed, by voice vote, a resolution not to adhere any future Freedom of Choice Act legislation that Congress might pass. Such FOCA legislation hasn't even been introduced into this session of Congress.  

Ultimately, North Dakota is in limbo. They're not willing to take a stand to challenge Roe v. Wade by passing personhood legislation, but they are completely unwilling to see access to abortion codified by the federal government. They're a socially conservative state that is eager to limit abortion access in a number of ways. After all, North Dakota only has one abortion clinic, located in Fargo, at the eastern border of the state.  

State legislators have also introduced a slew of anti-choice legislation this session : a bill that would require a doctor to read to a woman seeking an abortion that she will terminate "the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being"; a bill that gives women the "option" to view the fetus through an ultrasound before terminating the pregnancy; requiring abortion clinics to post signs that read, "NOTICE: No one can force you to have an abortion. It is against the law for a spouse, a boyfriend, a parent, a friend, a medical care provider, or any other person to in any way force you to have an abortion"; and setting aside at least $100,000 for promoting "alternatives-to-abortion" programs. Almost all of these pieces of legislation are likely to pass and have been widely endorsed by the anti-choice community, including the Catholic bishops. 

The personhood movement, spearheaded by the group Personhood USA, has outlined their definition of a fertilized egg as a person as the new way forward, but what has historically proven more effective is the incremental strategy the anti-choice movement has been pushing for years. Even the arguments over whether or not to pass personhood legislation didn’t focus on a woman’s right to abortion access, but rather looked at the inability of women to access in vitro treatments and the costs of defending such legislation in court.  

What’s happening in North Dakota is, in some ways, the opposite of the public conversation that resulted from the fight against the South Dakota abortion ban. In South Dakota, the dialogue that emerged was about family health and keeping health decisions between women and doctors. North Dakota is seeing “personhood” legislation as complicating other aspects of reproductive health. These arguments are, of course cheaper than launching an all-out public information campaign, especially when many non-profits are strapped for cash. And the strategy against HB 1572 was ultimately effective, but it may have left pro-choice activists open to future attacks on choice.