Embryo "Personhood" and the Threat to Infertility Patients

Posted by: Lee Rubin Collins JD at October 31, 2011
Category: Mississippi Initiative 26

Lee Rubin Collins

RESOLVE has been involved in advocacy for decades. If you live in a state where there is mandated insurance coverage for your diagnosis and treatment, in large part you have RESOLVE to thank! Since 1974, we have worked all over the country to improve insurance requirements and to persuade employers to offer more and better infertility coverage.

But in 2007, a new concern arose. RESOLVE learned that a group had collected sufficient signatures to put a proposed new law -- a "ballot initiative" -- before the voters of Colorado. This ballot initiative, called Amendment_48, would amend the definition of "person" in the Colorado state Constitution to "include any human being from the moment of fertilization." Thus, from the moment the sperm penetrated the egg inside a woman's body or, in the case of in vitro fertilization (IVF), in the laboratory, the resultant microscopic cell or cells would have "inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of law."

This proposed amendment, called by its supporters a "personhood amendment" (or a "personhood bill" in the case of legislation), is clearly intended to outlaw abortion, a subject that is outside of RESOLVE's scope of interest and on which we are neutral. But though no one was talking about it, we realized that equating fertilized eggs or microscopic embryos with persons could potentially affect IVF. We undertook to research and consider in detail how this very fundamental change to Colorado's Constitution would apply to IVF as it is practiced to the standard of care in this country.

The results of this analysis staggered us. We soon realized that if embryos were, for the first time in this country, accorded all the rights of full human beings, then any loss of embryos in the course of IVF could, presumably, be tantamount to murder. The "personhood amendment" posed a serious threat to the ability of people with infertility to obtain mainstream, long-established treatments to help them have a family.

Because this result is not exactly obvious from the simple language of the personhood amendment, we at RESOLVE determined to explain it in detail. Two lawyers affiliated with RESOLVE (Diana M., a volunteer I met at Advocacy Day in Washington, DC, and myself) thus began drafting an exhaustive analysis and policy, describing the serious repercussions of "personhood." This 3-page policy was finished in July, 2008 and was approved by the RESOLVE Board of Directors in August, 2008. The essence of the policy is this:

RESOLVE has reviewed all of these proposed laws and believes they may seriously impair the ability of citizens with infertility to obtain needed medical treatment. For that reason, RESOLVE opposes Personhood Legislation and Personhood Amendments and urges people who care about infertility to join RESOLVE in defeating these bills.

As a result of this analysis, RESOLVE joined the fight against the Colorado amendment. At that point, few others had focused on personhood's threat to infertility patients. But they soon appreciated our concerns about the effects of Amendment 48 -- and saw that many citizens, both within Colorado and throughout the rest of the country, changed their minds about supporting the amendment when they learned that a life-giving treatment like IVF would also be undermined if it passed.

The Colorado personhood amendment failed at the polls in 2008 and again in 2010, by a 3-to-1 margin. But the movement to pass personhood bills and initiatives has only grown since then. RESOLVE has battled to protect infertility patients against personhood ballot initiatives and legislation in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Texas. So far, we have been successful, but this threat continues to grow. "Personhood USA," the group that promotes personhood measures, has announced 10 more states where it has started personhood campaigns for 2012, and has started petitions in all 50 states. Fighting these personhood measures has become one of RESOLVE's major activities.

To us, this is about justice and fairness for people with the disease of infertility. We do not want to see our effective treatments taken away! If you agree, please add your name to our advocacy alert list... and PLEASE make a generous donation to RESOLVE! Every $50 helps us produce voter education materials in a state. Every $100 helps us get the word out in the media. Every dollar helps!

And help us fight Initiative 26, a Personhood ballot initiative in the state of Mississippi to be voted on November 8. Follow RESOLVE’s website and check out our list of resources to other blog posts, statements by other organizations, and news articles on the Initiative.

Lee Rubin Collins was a trial attorney and partner at Ropes & Gray, one of Boston's oldest and largest law firms, having earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard College, summa cum laude, and her J.D. from Harvard Law School. After experiencing secondary infertility, Ms. Collins decided to devote herself to the cause of infertility awareness and advocacy. She has worked with RESOLVE to improve insurance coverage for infertility and to defeat state legislative initiatives such as "personhood" bills that would interfere with IVF and other needed treatments.