April 22, 2025

"Perhaps the biggest shot in the arm for the fetal-personhood movement came in the form of an executive order ostensibly unrelated to abortion..."

"... one with an especially unwieldy and Orwellian name: Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. The order proclaims, with unwarranted confidence, that '"Female" means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell. "Male" means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.'... At this year’s March for Life rally... Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House... brought up Trump’s executive order early in his speech: 'I don’t know if you saw his executive order on gender, but it defines life as beginning at conception, rather than birth.' Johnson put invisible air quotes around 'gender,' but he came down hard on the word 'conception,' jabbing one finger in the air as he said it. The crowd cheered. Ideas have consequences."

Writes Margaret Talbot, in "Does a Fetus Have Constitutional Rights? After Dobbs, fetal personhood has become the anti-abortion movement’s new objective" (The New Yorker).

65 comments:

rehajm said...

I’d much prefer government did not abuse its power to mess with people but here we are. This one irks the right people…

rehajm said...

Really impressive would be Mike passing a budget with regular order but apparently that’s too tall an order…

Wa St Blogger said...

It all depends on how you define "people" If some people are more equal than others, atrocities are permitted.

Jamie said...

What's "Orwellian" about the title? "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government" - you can argue that (whatever it does do) it doesn't actually defend women against extremism because, say, it doesn't prevent them from being physically harmed or something like that, I suppose; but somehow I doubt that that's the part with which the writer has the quibble.

Is it her contention that a trans person, as a matter of biological truth, really is the sex he or she wants to appear to be? Because that is Orwellian, but it's not Trump's doing.

Side note: geez, while I was observing Lenten silence herein, the comment process reverted to almost unusable (for the long-winded, anyway) - it's next to impossible for me to scroll through my comment to proofread unless I do it one line at a time, as the "scrolling" just zooms to the bottom of the comment. Sigh. Apologies for the inevitable typos.

gilbar said...

serious question:
who has More Constitutional rights?
(that is; who deserves Due Process from law?)

an criminal Alien that entered our country without Due Process from law?
or an American child that is young and helpless?

rhhardin said...

No, it's a female fetus, not a female baby, except to parents that want a baby. They see it differently from parents that don't.

You can get consensus pretty much, or a majority vote anyway, when the fetus can be presented as cute on a sonogram, which is more or less where Europe wound up on abortion limits.

Jamie said...

Addendum: or I could just take the hint.

Christopher B said...

I can't think of better evidence than these quotes that the people throwing various labels at Trump and Musk (to pick two targets) don't have a clue about the actual beliefs behind them.

rhhardin said...

Even pro-life zealot Ann Coulter:

I think you’re clearly right This – abortion is really hurting Republicans. I don’t think you can blame all Republicans for this. I’m glad it was overturned by the Supreme Court, I think. I’m a pro-life zealot, I think it was disgusting to call that a Constitutional right But it has been sent back to the states, that’s all we ever wanted, And guess what pro-lifers? We’re getting slaughtered. There have been seven direct to the people votes. And the tiniest restriction on abortion loses overwhelmingly. In Montana, in Kentucky, Kansas, states that Trump won by 20 points and it isn’t Republicans per se, I think pushing this, it is these pro-life zealots. who just – they don’t care, I’m going to be pure, and did you see my write-up in the Catholic Insight magazine? And you know, you guys, you’re like the corporate Republicans who will not give up on their cheap labor. We have to tell them, “We can give you some things, but we can’t give you everything or we’re just gonna lose.”

Coulter on Maher Show

Michael said...

rhhardin said it best. We wanted it returned to the states and we got what we wanted.

So why can't the Republicans just declare victory and move on to other pressing issues?

Jamie said...

I'm pro-life but not a zealot, and I agree with Coulter: we can win the point ONLY by persuading women to have their babies, not by forbidding them to kill them. And there IS a difference, albeit largely something like "the ick," between killing a human embryo and killing a baby. (I'm not saying that killing a human embryo isn't ending a human life; it is. I'm talking about how your average pregnant teen or careless club-goer is going to make her decisions.)

Wince said...

"The order proclaims, with unwarranted confidence..."

The new "without evidence"?

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Is this really a new argument? A fetus already has established rights. Pregnant women can be charged with crimes for damaging their fetus with drugs or alcohol. People who murder pregnant women can be charged with two homicides.

Wait until Trump declares human fetuses an endangered species based on population declines. That will be a new argument!

Quaestor said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Quaestor said...

Abortion has its fan and its detractors. Though they loathe to admit it, both camps share a logical problem that ought to embarrass everyone into awkward silence. In nature, not all reproductive processes result in a new life that is itself capable of reproduction. Not all eggs hatch because there are natural abortions. Abortion advocates smile and point, saying, "See? We've got Science on our side. If it weren't for natural abortions, we'd be up to our collective ass in starving children." Miscarriages and other kinds of natural abortions are acts of God and not matters for the law. (Though not always. Robert Dudley, Queen Elizabeth's beloved, narrowly escaped trial for two murders when his pregnant wife Amy was found dead at the foot of a stairway.) However, every person was once a fertilized ovum. At what point in his history did any person gain personhood? What's the magic? The friends of abortion dare not answer for fear of sounding insane. Abortion critics ought to avoid the same question, because personhood at conception implies legal complications arising in every miscarriage or spontaneous abortion.

Olson Johnson is right! said...

Does a Fetus Have Constitutional Rights?--- Yes, they have many rights.
Right to inherit, you can make a will leaving your estate to an unborn person.
Right of citizenship, an American overseas who dies in childbirth, the offspring is still a citizen.
Right of health, A mother who drinks during the pregnancy can be held criminally responsible for damage to the child.
Right to welfare, two identical women equal in all ways but one is pregnant will be eligible to different government assistance. The right to assistance is with the child and not the mother.
Right to have liberty. The preamble says the blessings are for ourselves and our posterity. 'Posterity' means people not yet born.

I listened to the New Yorker story and a lot was re-hash baloney ("clump of cells" they still push that?) But it did reasonably point out the IVF problem. Maybe a solution would be a distinction between conception and implantation. I still don't understand why they need to freeze embryos anyway. They can freeze sperm and eggs, why create life knowing it will be destroyed?

If there is a theme to our constitutional republic after 250 years is that it is an expansion of rights to more and more persons. Each amendment, each interpretation and ruling is a two steps forward one step back, but progress for more liberty for more persons.
I would look forward and support a personhood amendment.

Not Illinois Resident said...

I resent Transwomen thinking lipstick and a brightly-colored top makes them as much a woman as a mother who bore children.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Side note: The phrase "shot in the arm" should probably be retired as its entire meaning changed over the last five years, from a positive "energy lift" to negative images of people coerced by the force of the State to take the C19 jab. It's become loaded with the baggage of that totalitarian turn. At best it now might seem like a nostalgic JFK-era figure of speech.

Caroline said...

Though I agree with what rhhardin and others have said, I think this administration is succeeding in tugging at the thread of the progressive garment simply by “calling things by their real names”*. Scotland conservatives just won a stunning victory for women by doing just that. Pull the thread hard enough, and the whole fabric of lies unravels.
* Archbishop Charles Chaput, against gay marriage.

Immanuel Rant said...

I don't see that "Miscarriages and other kinds of 'natural abortions'" cause any more philosophical problems regarding a fetus and the abortion arguments over lightnings strikes and auto accidents regarding an adult.

That someone may well be struck by lightning (an act of God) does not invalidate laws on murder, much less make the action legal.

CJinPA said...

This appeals to passionate pro-lifers. Everyone else is skeptical or spurred to political opposition.

Lem Vibe Banditory said...

Would an executive order making the unborn MS13 gang members ensure automatic protection? Do process.

Roger Sweeny said...

If pets are furry babies and their owners are petparents, and if trees maybe should have legal standing to bring suits, it's not much of a stretch to say fetuses have rights.

Birches said...

The media discovered wife beating gang members weren't doing the job so they went back to the old bone of abortion. Problem is they already have single women and married women who have children are disinclined to have their daughters slaughter their grandchildren.

Jaq said...

Dred Scott got overturned, isn't that the other time when the legal personhood of a human being was denied.

I personally support the idea that there is a right to abortion, but I am not going to make dishonest arguments in favor of it.

boatbuilder said...

For the last week we have been enjoying and celebrating the arrival of our first grandchild, a beautiful, healthy and tiny 7 lb baby boy.

I don't pretend to know the answers, but we've all been watching him very carefully over the last few months. There is perhaps some dividing line between "clump of cells" and "person," but it isn't birth.

rhhardin said...

The problem with human being is that the language (nobody's language in fact) supports fetus=baby. Language follows interest, so nobody is making that equivalence in the absence of dogma.

You can say human embryo, you can human in embryo, but you can't say an embryo is a human. There are a thousand says to bring that out as a feature of the language.

If you're going to overcome language's distinction, it will be by violence or threat of violence.

rhhardin said...

that the language doesn't support

Big Mike said...

After Dobbs, fetal personhood has become the anti-abortion movement’s new objective

[Shrug]. And perhaps they’ll succeed and perhaps they won’t. That’s what happens when you choose to live in a democracy.

rhhardin said...

"There is perhaps some dividing line between "clump of cells" and "person," but it isn't birth."

It's cuteness. Birth happens to be a hard line where society can notice cuteness and so takes in interest itself, hence protection by law.

In the other direct, you can say that you learn to be human, so birth isn't an actual line as far as the language goes. You could say of a newborn "He looks like a tiny human" and it would be a joke, because he lacks a lot of things that go into being a human. Learning consists of teaching him roles, say-foring, and so forth. He picks up more and more of what it means to be a human.

Of a monster we say "He hardly seems human." He's missing a trait. Newborns miss a lot more.

rhhardin said...

My best shot philosophically is someone is fully human when he addresses you, which is what singles you out as unique and irreplaceable. For that you owe him something. Speaking only of the forces in language.

Milo Minderbinder said...

"[W]ith unwarranted confidence, ...," What utter and arrogant garbage.

Jaq said...

"There is perhaps some dividing line between "clump of cells" and "person," but it isn't birth."

I guess that at some point there is a dividing line between cute old people and annoying grave dodgers too.

Sebastian said...

"with unwarranted confidence" Already covered by others, but still: if this confidence is unwarranted, could anything else be said with any warranted confidence?

Bob Boyd said...

Do you need a passport to travel in the womb?

rhhardin said...

When chimps were taught sign language and started talking, there was an intellectual emergency, because they could address you I think. No emergency among animal trainers, who have been addressed for millennia, but among intellectuals.

Aggie said...

@boatbuilder, "For the last week we have been enjoying and celebrating the arrival of our first grandchild..." Congratulations ! It's a great feeling.

I saw a short video yesterday of an expecting Dad, during a sonogram examination of his wife. The sonogram was showing the fetus' face, and when the Dad spoke, the baby smiled every time. It's hard not to be affected by something like this (he certainly was).

It's always been an individual's choice to have / not have, and the Dodd decision reinforces this, by removing the State's absolution. It was never a constitutional right. But the individual bears the moral responsibility and consequence of their choice, to be resolved with their maker. Life is precious.

Iman said...

These monsters must be allowed to murder babies. Is it a lack of self control, psychopathy, blood lust or all the above.

Jaq said...

"Do you need a passport to travel in the womb?"

Steel trap logic there. Once passports became a legal requirement to travel, unborn human beings lost their legal personhood. ∎

Q.E.D. Modus tollens.

Of course "necessity" does not apply. Neither does the fact that not requiring an unborn human being to have a passport is a simple choice that was made unthinkingly in the past have anything to do with it!

Marcus Bressler said...

In Florida, it is not necessarily a crime to take drugs while pregnant. Yes, you can stretch one statute to that point, but no one does. The idea that it is NOT a crime to take drugs while pregnant is so that the woman involved will not seek "help" to stop her addiction and harm to the fetus if she knows she may be charged with a crime and suffer the consequences. Sounds liberal and good, eh? Yeahrite. They all continue use until birth. I personally know a woman who gave birth to two addicted babies; it was terrifying to watch them go through withdrawals in the PICU. (sp?) Her first died after direct exposure to fentanyl (that case, after a year, is still open and under investigation). Then she got pregnant with the same man again; she began using again and still is. Her "baby daddy" and her are currently in DCF court in the state's attempt to remove their parental rights (the father, simply because he was in the vehicle while the child went into seizures- DCF has egg on its face). She will definitely lose PR. She was using fentanyl WHILE DURING A SUPERVISED VISIT TO SEE THE NEWBORN SECOND CHILD. You may call revocation of PR a punishment of a 'crime', I don't. She should be in prison.

Jaq said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jaq said...

Is a child born on an incoming flight to the US, let's simplify this, to two married parents who are natural born US citizens required to have a passport to enter the country?

If not, is infanticide permissible in this case?

Jake said...

"Hey, why don't we make the vanguard of our party an issue that is certain to result in losses at the polls?" Great idea, idiot. It's nota constitutional right. Now let the states do their lab of democracy shit and let's get past this as quickly as possible. Other than TDS it's basically the only thing that unites the left.

Wa St Blogger said...

I'm pro-emancipation but not a zealot, and I agree with Coulter: we can win the point ONLY by persuading Owners to emancipate their slaves, not by forbidding them to Own them. And there IS a difference, albeit largely something like "the ick," between killing a Negro and killing a Person. (I'm not saying that killing a Negro isn't ending a human life; it is. I'm talking about how your average is going to make her decisions.)

n.n said...

Homicide from six weeks. A hate crime from conception under Loving.

Progressives dream of human rites performed in the Aztec empire, when they ate not salivating over Mengele/Levine, or joyfully relieving "burdens" in a far-left Reich. A wicked solution prosecuted with liberal license.

Bob Boyd said...

I wasn’t making a pro abortion argument, Jaq.

n.n said...

Keep women affordable, reusable, disposable, and taxable, and the "burden" of evidence sequestered in sanctuary states? #MeToo #NoJudgment #NoLabels #HateLovesAbortion

Greg The Class Traitor said...

The order proclaims, with unwarranted confidence, that '"Female" means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.

The person who wrote "with unwarranted confidence" is either an ignoramus or a liar, because Trump's definition is entirely scientifically correct

mikee said...

The pro-life movement, like the pro-abortion movement did from 1972 to the present, has already gone too far with successful state abortion limits, some without consideration of the physical health of the mother and/or attempting to limit free speech and interstate travel. Courts and voters will find an equilibrium of individual rights and state authority, as has been done before for other issues. And this is what the state-level abortion decisions will do, as populations choose state by state how they want it handled as a matter of state law. Get a constitutional abortion amendment going, which won't pass in my lifetime, or find a state suitable for your abortion needs and beliefs. Abortion is being handled by the government as it should be, with a lot of mess and bother, under our current Constitution - by the states.

Jaq said...

Bob, I just thought that you made an interesting argument, and was having fun with it. I meant no offense.

JIM said...

The taking of a life never leaves your conscience. I think abortion is a sin and an evil.
Despite decades of public messaging on birth control and the readily availability of same, many hundreds of thousands of abortions happen every year.
After seeing abortion put to the democratic process it's obvious that a vast majority of Americans are Okay with it. So be it.

Bob Boyd said...

I'm not offended. I can see what you were doing and you were doing it well, but it took me a minute because I wasn't thinking along that line.
I was thinking about the post yesterday about passports and self proclaimed gender identity. I was also trying to work and post at the same time so my comment wasn't really even worth posting.

Readering said...

I don't have access to the article but i assume it addresses Trump's militant pro-IVF stance.

Jamie said...

the individual bears the moral responsibility and consequence of their choice, to be resolved with their maker

...if they believe they have one.

The above is obviously true, and - I think - is a big part of why the pro-abortion side has tried so hard to remove all stigma from abortion. (I'm sure we all remember the attempts to make "shout your abortion" happen.) The problem is that everyone knows abortion carries at least an emotional cost - so now the effort has shifted to coloring abortion as "reproductive health care" and even more generically "a woman's right to choose" or "bodily autonomy." The terminology all obfuscates the fact that what they seek is for women and girls to have not just the legal right but a convenient and cost-free way - including the emotional cost, which I sincerely hope can't be escaped, as it ought to be paid if we want to consider ourselves human - to kill their babies.

WA St. Blogger, your very loaded (if tortured) analogy notwithstanding, I live in a world in which unwanted pregnancies will happen and unwanted babies are going to die by some means unless the mothers can be convinced that adoption is their best option, not just an option. I think we're probably on the same side there. What's your plan? I don't have a better one than telling the truth about abortion, with sensitivity to the fact that the pregnant woman or girl has been bombarded with messages about the burdens of pregnancy and motherhood and the ruination of her life, and trying to persuade - but I admit I haven't gotten involved in adoption advocacy.

Wa St Blogger said...

What's your plan? I don't have a better one than telling the truth about abortion, with sensitivity to the fact that the pregnant woman or girl has been bombarded with messages about the burdens of pregnancy and motherhood and the ruination of her life, and trying to persuade - but I admit I haven't gotten involved in adoption advocacy.

The plan has to start with eliminating the belief that life is valuable only if wanted. In reality, the only coherent positions to take on abortion is any up until viability or none (barring serious health issues.) Any other "compromise" is incoherent because the pro abortionist is ceding the fact that the life has value and is just trying to assuage their guilt by setting "reasonable" limits. The pro-life person that compromises, admits that they are rejecting inherent value. It is a Solomon-like split the baby issue. The pre-born either have value and rights or they do not. There can be no middle ground other than to say that their value is entirely dependent on the decision of another person. At no other instance do we allow one person to be the sole arbiter of another person's value.

The fact that a person is bombarded with messages says a lot about our society. Society needs to change its focus on valuing life. No easy ask.

No matter how one argues from the position of "its cruel for an unwanted child to be born", virtually nobody born wishes they were not (barring depression). For the vast majority of human history our lives have been a story of pain and misery, and yet people strove to live. The fact that we have devalued motherhood to the level we have is a sad story. A society that elevates self, devalues motherhood and children.

As the adoptee of 6 (would have been more if the cost were not significant), I AM an advocate of adoption. It should be easier and more supported. All the money wasted on the culture war would go a long way to finding loving homes for unwanted babies.

The fact, also, that clinics the affirm birth are targeted as evil and people praying outside abortion clinics are arrested shows that the issue is not about women's health. At it's root is the idea that not all lives matter, and when you make exceptions, you allow other exceptions the fuel to grow.

So, be a pro-life absolutist, knowing that you can't save every child, but don't compromise for convenience sake, instead proudly say that each life matters and be gracious and loving to those who might have had an abortion.

Bunkypotatohead said...

Maybe we can compromise. No abortions allowed for Republican women, and unlimited free abortions for Democrats.

Wa St Blogger said...

Maybe we can compromise. No abortions allowed for Republican women, and unlimited free abortions for Democrats.

We tried that compromise once. Slavery in the south, not in the north.

Rusty said...

Readering said...
"I don't have access to the article but i assume it addresses Trump's militant pro-IVF stance."
Care to explain?

Readering said...

https://www.arcfertility.com/personhood-mean-ivf/

n.n said...

The issue is elective abortion of a viable human life. The issue is performance of human rites for social, clinical, criminal, political, and climate progress. The issue is a wicked solution to a hard problem: keep women affordable, reusable, available, and taxable, and the "burden" of evidence sequestered in sanctuary states.

n.n said...

Fetus is a technical term-of-art used by technicians to socially distance, and abortionists to hide the identity of their victims. Six weeks to homicide. A hate crime from conception under Loving. Lose your Pro-Choice religion.

n.n said...

Mortal gods and goddesses, experts, etc. are a model of faith in secular religions.

n.n said...

IVF is a strawman apology. How many are implanted?

Six weeks to homicide, even in sanctuary states. A hate crime from conception under Loving. The pro-abortionists need to lose their Pro-Choice religion practiced under progressive principles, principals in liberal jurisdictions.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

mikee said...
The pro-life movement, like the pro-abortion movement did from 1972 to the present, has already gone too far with successful state abortion limits, some without consideration of the physical health of the mother and/or attempting to limit free speech and interstate travel.

1: Bullshit
2: To the extent that pro-life laws don't provide a "health" exception, it's because corrupt scumbag "judges" on the left previously established that "health" included "mental health", and that meant a doctor writing "my patient will feel better if she gets an abortion" meant the "health exception" was satisfied.
Actions have consequences
3: It is illegal to transport a 16 year old from CA to MN for the purpose of screwing her in MN, even though its legal to have sex with a 16 year old in MN.

Unless you were bitching about such laws long before Dobbs, you can STFU about laws applying the same principle to abortion.

Transporting a baby to another state so you can legally kill her is far more extreme than transporting a girl to another state so you can legally screw her

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