The Personhood Amendment

Where was the Preacher?

Most of the sparse traffic was wisely scattering out of my way as I roared north on South University Avenue in the early dawn of Little Rock, Arkansas, hazard lights flashing and horn blaring! My young wife, her face pasty and white with shock, sat curled up and whimpering in agony as I rocketed past stop signs and blasted through traffic lights in my frantic race to the University of Arkansas Medical Center emergency room!

One moron, apparently on a Mission From God to slow me down, suddenly swerved from the lane on my left to directly in front of me as his brake lights flashed alarmingly. I rammed my car over the curb, narrowly missing a light pole, thundered along the sidewalk, and slammed back onto the roadway in front of the surprised and frustrated meddler! Finally I screeched to a stop in the ambulance lane of the hospital and screamed out the window, "Help me, I think my wife is hemorrhaging!"

People in blue scrubs and white coats, accompanied by somebody pushing a gurney loaded with medical instruments, quickly but gently extracted her from the car and promptly wheeled her into the brightly lit hospital. I hurriedly abandoned my car where I though the parking area probably was and was met at the hospital entrance by a white-haired gentleman with a clipboard. "What happened?" he asked.

"I don't know!" I replied shakily. "She suddenly woke up screaming in pain and holding her belly. She had an infection in her right tube when she was little. I don't know if this is a recurrence or not!!"

"Could she be pregnant?" he wanted to know.

"Possibly," I told him. "We've been trying often enough!"

"It might be an ectopic pregnancy," he responded. "We'll prep her for surgery just in case. Fill out these forms and stay in the waiting room. We may want to ask more questions."

The old gentleman was back in what seemed like hours! "I was right," he explained. "She had a ruptured tube. They're working on her now. She'll be all right."

"Can you save the embryo?" I asked. "That's my first child."

"What?" He seemed surprised. "Oh, no!" It's already implanted in the tube. We have to remove the whole thing. She'll be OK, though. She can still have children. All she needs is one. Don't worry; she'll be fine!"

The United States Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade has been the subject of criticism and condemnation from the Catholic Church since 1973. The question posed to the Court in that action was very simple: Does a Texas law (and similar laws in other states) that makes it a crime to 'procure an abortion,' except for the purpose of 'saving the life of the mother,' violate the United States Constitution? The finding of the Court was:

"A state criminal abortion statute of the current Texas type, that excepts from criminality only a lifesaving procedure on behalf of the mother, without regard to pregnancy stage and without recognition of the other interests involved, is violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician..."

How, exactly, is this "not getting involved in politics?"

As a Catholic, I look with extreme disfavor on the use of funds contributed to the Church's ministry for this kind of misguided political subversion, and to subject me to its offensive propaganda while I am in church to pray, hear the preaching of truth and worship Almighty God. As a retired armed service member who has sworn to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic," I believe I have an obligation to oppose it as an act of sedition. It is a cross I fervently wish not to have to bear! I would suggest instead encouraging our young people to use appropriate methods to change laws they don't like. Bitching about the Supreme Court is not one of them, and doesn't seem to be accomplishing anything else of any value, either. Somebody in authority should have encouraged those old enough to do so to register and vote for IM26 - and to encourage their friends to do likewise! I did!

So far, the efforts of Catholics who are opposed to abortion in the USA have often been a case of cowboys who are "all hat; no cattle." "Pro-Life Activists" are more say so and less do so. They are great at marching around Washington, murdering an obstetrician or records clerk now and then, rioting at obstetric care facilities, designating all such facilities as "abortion clinics," castigating people who don't agree with them, terrorizing frightened teenage girls, buying bumper stickers for their cars, "beseeching the Blessed Mother for an end to the scourge of abortion in the United States and around the world in church," and plastering their vehicles with TRUMP stickers.

They're not much at sponsoring realistic alternative legislation or properly subsidizing pregnancy support centers and destitute mother outreach programs, either. Yet when the opportunity actually to make a real contribution to "pro-life" presented itself, their silence was overwhelming! Why aren't they equally as vehement about protecting the civil rights of the unborn as they are about condemning, restricting and eliminating those of their mothers? I submit that it is because their originally praiseworthy purpose has been subverted by the infiltration of dark powers! I can name you names!

These people call themselves "pro-life," but what they actually are is anti-abortion, which is not the same thing. While it is true that most, if not all, induced abortions involve the intentional death of a living fetus, (feticide), that is not necessarily the purpose or outcome any more than is a heart transplant. Abortion without feticide would have been legal under IM26. Removal of the fetus for legitimate therapeutic purposes or for transfer to a willing healthy recipient mother or artificial uterus would appear to be a desirable option if the health of the fetus or donor mother would be otherwise jeopardized. Such a procedure might well be illegal, and apparently is now, under laws that simply make abortion a criminal activity.

Fetal adoption, the transfer of a fetus from one uterus to another, is common in domestic animals, and seems likely to be successful with humans as well. Wouldn't it be nice if an unborn human child could be safely removed from a sick or dying mother, or one that just didn't want the baby, and allow it to be subsequently born to somebody who can't have children but desperately wants one? Specifically banning abortion eliminates that option and forces the child to die along with his mother, or to be born into this world in a family to whom he is forever an unwanted mistake unless his mother resorts to illegal and possibly dangerous alternatives. As far as I can tell, the "pro-lifers" are in favor of both of these situations.

During the last quarter century, our Nation has witnessed a drastic increase in the number of senseless murders perpetrated by teens and young adults motivated by hatred and self-loathing. Many of them have murdered innocent people they didn't even know. One has to wonder if they, not to mention their victims and society as a whole, would have been better off if they had died before they were born rather than whatever happened to them afterward that changed them into sociopathic monsters!

There has also been a noticeable increase in the number of parents of petty criminals who have become fabulously wealthy as a result of their unwanted children dying in a police shoot-out or vehicle crash associated with the perpetration of a crime. Are parents who have been forced by circumstances to bear children they really don't want using their demise as a source of income? Is anyone trying to find out? Do the "pro-lifers" regard this an acceptable, or possibly desirable outcome?

Among the many rights in addition to mere survival prior to birth to which every human being is entitled is that of achieving his or her potential as a healthy, well-adjusted, loved and cherished gift of God in a stable family environment. He or she has an absolute right not to be treated as a mistake or a possession or an unpaid employee or a sacrifice in return for unmerited wealth, or to be savagely beaten and threatened or sexually molested anytime the parent feels like it! Anybody who selects only the basic right to life to espouse, especially while denying those of the mother, needs to get his mind right!

It might be possible to raise a fetus obtained by an "abortion" procedure to term as a healthy, desperately wanted baby in an artificial womb. Such a device was patented by Emanuel M. Greenberg in 1955. That's 1955, people! Experiments are ongoing with sheep fetuses.

A living, moving lamb fetus in an artificial womb The technique could be used to save human infants Click on the picture to see the video

All the discussions I have had with "pro-life" people convinces me that they are so emotionally involved with their position that they are as capable of examining the subject logically as is a capuchin monkey! I absolutely horrified a clergyman friend of mine by pointing out that the Deity for whom he supposedly speaks is both "pro-life" and "pro-choice." The fact is, if you intend to have an abortion, He won't do a thing to stop you, because He respects the free will with which He has endowed all human beings, including pregnant mothers equally as much as male clergy and voters. He is no less the author of choice than He is the author of life, and it is immoral, sinful and wrong to usurp His divine authority by depriving anyone, of whatever age or gender, of either. Enslavement and murder are both crimes against God as well as other human beings!

It seems to me that the so-called "pro-lifers" are much less concerned with civil rights than they are simply about forcing other people to live by their beliefs, whatever the cost to those other people. If they really believed what they claim, they wouldn't vote for exceptions to choose which unborn children can be killed and for what purposes. Of course, then all those "pro-life" husbands might have to raise crippled children, or those fathered by men other then themselves, or those whose birth made their wives sterile, or whose life support maintenance expenses might require them to forego their new cars or lavish vacation plans! Can't have that!

People who are really concerned about the life of the unborn would be contributing toward technology for life support of unborn children of sick, injured or dying mothers. As it is, nobody is doing that! The "pro-lifers" that I have talked to about it refuse to even consider the idea!

The basic problem is that the "pro-lifers" have lost sight of the fact that preventing abortion and feticide, even if possible, would be only one of a number of means to an the end that they allegedly espouse, which is supposedly the protection of fetal life. Actual protection of fetal life would necessarily include legal protection of the 90,000 to 1,000,000 fertilized ova now abandoned in cryogenic storage that have nothing whatever to do with abortion but are equally as human as those in utero! Their pursuit of the means to an end has become an end in itself, and the original end, that of actual protection of the unborn, has been callously renounced and abandoned. There isn't a single law in the United States, or any state, that recognizes an unborn child as having human rights! Not one!

They're like people who claim to disapprove of the lynching of slaves by maintaining slavery, but outlawing the sale of rope!

A local pastor publicly maintains that a Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who is "pro-choice," without any other consideration at all. What he said was, "...Can a Catholic vote for a candidate who is 'pro-choice'? The answer is 'No'." He seems to have missed the fact that "pro-choice" is a position espoused by fickle human beings. They can, if they wish, change their minds - either way, such as Norma McCorvey, the "Jane Roe" in Roe v. Wade. She went from "pro-choice" to "pro-life" and back again when the "pro-lifers" decided that her endorsement was not worth the money they were paying to bribe and exploit this tragically abused and unhappy woman, who never, ever actually had an abortion. Their actual position is evident only by their actions, You shall know them by their fruits! According to the pastor's reasoning, I can't even vote for a "pro-choice" candidate (whatever that actually may be) for dog catcher! He's OK with a adulterous race-baiting, tax cheating, investor swindling, worker shafting, dictator loving, pathologically lying, attorneys general bribing, philandering narcissistic oath-breaking con artist bully, but not somebody who supports civil rights for women!

But then again, "The Church doesn't get involved in politics!"

There is something very wrong with any supposedly "Christian" congregation that supports a candidate who is pro-Nazi, pro-misogyny, pro-divorce, pro-racist, pro-alien-hating, pro-environmental destruction, pro-megalomania, pro-sedition, pro-bullying, and a notorious liar, who tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of Presidential power and whose policies are even condemned by the Pope! He claims to be "pro-life" to get votes, but during his entire life he has yet to do a single thing to help a pregnant mother raise any child other than his own, unborn or otherwise! Does it not matter that he's "pro-lying under oath" as well, or that he has personally established a policy of separating destitute migrant children from their parents, or turning away Bahamian refugees from Hurricane Dorian because they don't have US visas, or executing more federal prisoners than any other one-term US President? What did Jesus say about false prophets, not to mention the Father of Lies?

This particular pastor says that we should "speak up for what we believe." This is me doing that! My views on preventing abortion by helpful, compassionate government intervention have been on record for over twenty years. Maybe somebody should be trying to convince political candidates to support them by preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ rather than blindly taking as their Savior a lying, conniving, convicted cheat and rapist!

It seems to me that "love they neighbor "should apply equally to embryos in cryogenic storage and pregnant mothers as well as to their unborn children! The mother, not the state, is the sole, divinely-appointed guardian of the unborn child! It is the function of religion to convince her to exercise that responsibility, not to usurp it!

The fact is, Roe v. Wade was the right decision. It was the correct decision. It was based on the facts of the case. That the facts are other than what we would like to be is our fault, not theirs. The Supreme Court has a sacred duty, not to decide what the Constitution should say, but what it actually says. Only then can we make intelligent choices about if or how the law based upon it should be changed by our legislature or popular referendum. To claim that it is the Court's fault is a monumental obscene lie! In actual fact, the Court suggested the means for such a change in it's opinion, written by Justice Blackmun:

"The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a "person" within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment... If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment. (emphasis mine) The... appellee conceded on reargument that no case could be cited that holds that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.*

The Constitution does not define "person" in so many words ... the use of the word ["person" in the Constitution] is such that it has application only post-natally. None indicates, with any assurance, that it has any possible pre-natal application.*

All this... persuades us that the word "person," as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn... We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer."

Several states have recently passed draconian laws that would criminalize abortion for providers and their clients far beyond those in effect when Roe v. Wade was decided. Their proponents claim that they are "forcing a reconsideration" of that decision, but nothing in the various laws says anything about that, and not one of them has come up with a single argument to challenge the fact on which that decision was based in the first place, which is that unborn children are not "persons" before the law. Their position seems to be that if they propose to punish abortion severely enough, the Supreme Court will give in, decide that they were wrong before and just let them do it! That is what actually happened, but it still doesn't recognize unborn human beings as "persons," which is supposedly the core of the "pro-life" argument.

Passage of IM26 would not have overturned Roe v. Wade, which was correct as it stood, but it would have provided legal protection to people as human as you or I who are now daily thrown in the garbage as so much trash, like my first son or daughter. Mississippi has not had such an opportunity to show its concern for human rights since the proposal of the 13th Amendment (before which slaves were "property" before the law). It took us until 1995 to ratify that, and over 17 more years before we admitted to the US Secretary of State that we had done it!

The Catholic Church in the United States publishes guidelines that confine its political activity to that lawful for tax exempt organizations. However, regardless of the anticipated consequences, the Catholic clergy abdicated their mandate to "proclaim the gospel to every creature" when they failed to take a conspicuous public stand on this issue, quite apart from politics. If the Catholic membership does not do its duty to proclaim the truth, how can we justify criticizing the members of the Supreme Court for doing theirs? We do get involved in politics, and we aren't doing our sacred duty, either!

I think it would be interesting for some pro-life pastor or other civic leader to announce something actually pro-life such as the following:

"It has come to my attention that we have at least twenty-six unmarried pregnant women in our parish who have no place to live because their families refuse to care for them. I believe that we have at least that many other families whose adult children or elderly relatives have recently vacated their homes, and therefore now have the means to take in these mothers and care for them and their babies until they are able to do that for themselves. I'd like to see a show of hands of those who are dedicated to protecting life enough to commit to doing that and are willing to sign the pledge to that effect in the back of the church. Anyone who wants to do this while remaining anonymous can call me at the rectory or write me a letter. I will put you in touch with one of these mothers in need. The church will reimburse you for your extra expenses."

IM26 failed, of course. There were claims that it was "too ambiguous," or that it would prevent pregnant women from getting health care, or that it would make birth control illegal or that it would prohibit the sale of condoms. Curiously, I didn't hear a single argument that a human being is not a person from the moment of conception, only that legally recognizing that would negatively impact those who are already acknowledged to be "persons" under Mississippi law, that is, Mississippi voters, many of whom are progeny of slaves! Much the same arguments were advanced against freeing the slaves back in 1865, as a result of which it took Mississippi almost 130 years to ratify the 13th Amendment that did that, and almost eighteen more years to notify the US Secretary of State. This time, history repeated itself; the liars and hypocrites won again.

It seems to me that people who are actually "pro-life" would be equally concerned about the lives of all human embryos, including those in cryogenic storage**, or those who are about to be born to mothers who don't want them, or those who are about to die because their mothers are sick or injured, or those who have grown up to hate themselves because they were unwanted and unloved as children. To be honest, it has not escaped my notice that none of these positions involve sanctimonious male bullying of vulnerable women and making it a crime to try to help them in their misery. Expectant mothers are people, too, and both Moses and Jesus commanded that we love them as ourselves.

In a recent publication "On Human Dignity," the Catholic Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith emphasized the essential dignity of all human beings as being inseparable from their nature. All life is fleeting; dignity is forever! It is a terrible thing to send a person to God before he or she has a chance to experience life after birth, but it seems to me to be an immeasurably greater evil for anyone to deny that person, or the mother involved, their essential rights and dignity in favor of a stance that is little more than a political slogan, especially if imposed on others whom they don't even know!

People who stridently claim to be "pro-life" while staunchly ignoring the rights inherent in the humanity of the mother and the child appear to do little more than "... bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne" on other people whose God-given rights and authority as adult human beings they arrogantly seek to take away, just like those of the slaves!

For shame, people, for shame!

John Lindorfer

PS: On June 24th, 2022, The United States Supreme Court effectively overturned the decision in Roe v. Wade by the determination, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, that Roe was wrongly decided, that a woman does not have a right under the United States Constitution to have an abortion. In spite of passionate arguments to the contrary, this does not confer or recognize any rights pertaining to the unborn child. Instead, it removes a previously recognized right of a mother, the child's sole natural custodian, to decide for herself whether to have an abortion at early stages of pregnancy. It simply leaves that decision to state and federal legislatures that consist overwhelmingly of middle and upper class, white, married men. I confess to having grave suspicions of any laws passed by people who are automatically exempt from them. Making laws for other people is called "slavery! "Slavery is intrinsically evil and specifically unconstitutional! It took the United States over 89 years to recognize that. How many years will it take us to recognize the intrinsic evil of denying rights specific to mothers, or denying the unborn any rights at all?

Having failed utterly to "preach the Gospel to every creature" to convince the women of the moral suasion of their position, and to help pregnant mothers obtain the resources they need to bear and raise their children, the "pro-life" hypocrites turned instead to political means, just like the torturing and murdering Spanish Inquisition, without any change in justification or logic. Basically, they broke down the "wall of separation between church and state" erected by the First Amendment, so that they could let the Devil in, and now they're stuck with him! This includes two lying Supreme Court justices who claimed, during their confirmation hearings, under oath, that Roe v. Wade was settled law, and then duplicitously voted the other way in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. Can anything good come of lying under oath?

It is not the last word, however. The maternal rights guaranteed by the Roe decision, as well as the recognition of the basic humanity of unborn children, can be permanently restored within a year by The People. Some of them, including the President, are working on that! But first, they must vote out of office those federal and state legislators who substitute their own personal moral values from the demonstrated will of those to whom the law they impose applies, along with their supporters, sycophants and political cronies. An appropriate law to protect such rights might be something like the following:

The security guaranteed under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution shall extend to the right of medical, surgical, chiropractic, orthopedic and psychological treatment of a patient agreed to solely by that patient or legal guardian and his or her licensed caregiver.

But The People have to do their part. They have to vote! Responsibly!

If one disregards the civil rights of the mother, mandated prevention of abortion is absurdly easy; just sterilize all the women of childbearing age, whether by surgical or mechanical intervention or "putting them on The Pill." Other means could include inhibiting copulation by surgical or mechanical means, imposition of psychological trauma to produce crippling sexual phobia, or denying access to potential fathers, such as in a convent, for example. If a woman happens to get pregnant anyway, society could mandate supervised confinement, perhaps under physical restraint, for anyone known or suspected of being pregnant, to "protect the baby," and certainly for the father as well!

Currently, it is estimated that over 620,000 little girls per day are brutally molested, tortured and mutilated as a religious act in male-dominated countries where culture is tied to religion. They often die from infection or blood loss. Half of these who manage to survive to adulthood find intercourse painful, and twice as many as normal experience no sexual satisfaction at all. One wonders how common this practice is likely to become in countries where male dominated religions and legislatures get to decide what, if any, authority women have over their own reproduction.

Or, we could go back to Inquisition days, bind any woman suspected of having had an abortion to a stake in the public square, conduct a touching little public religious ceremony, and then set her on fire! That ought to put the fear of God in them!

Regarding current Catholic teaching, an associate of mine points out that the Catechism of the Catholic Church uses the term "embryo" eight times (paragraphs 2271, 2774, 2775, 2323, 2377) other than in the index; the term "fetus" only once (paragraph 2274), in defense of diagnosis for legitimate theraputic purposes, and the term "oocyte" not at all. Therefore, he maintains, the Church endorses abuses of human "fetuses" other than for diagnostic acivities, and any abuse at all of "oocytes." This strikes me as equivalent to claiming that the Church endorses the abuse of slaves if they are "darkies" (or that they are not persons)! I prefer not to discuss the subject with him on the theory that it is unethical and immoral to engage in a battle of intelligence with an unarmed opponent!

I find it significant that, with all the legislative prohibitions and punishments imposed by mostly male legislators and clergymen on woman and other people who seek, have, procure, assist in and promote abortion, there isn't a single law in the United States, not one! that imposes any sanctions at all against the fathers of aborted children. The male clergy and legislators and "pro-life" advocates who don't move a finger to lift the heavy burdens imposed on pregnant women whose consorts abandon them have turned blind eyes to holding the the fathers accountable for the social tragedy of the abdication of the their awesome parental duties and responsibilities. I believe that measures at least as severe as those imposed on others should be meted out to the father, identified by any aborted child's forensic DNA analysis, whose cowardly abuse of the women involved deprives her pregnancy and subsequent childbirth of the joyous experience that it should be. And yes, I include current and former husbands as well as single paramours and rapists, regardless of their social or political standing.

By denying the unborn the legal recognition of personhood in favor of more enigmatic positions, the civil rights deniers leave themselves the continued hypocritical and illogical option of selecting to whom the "right to life" does not apply. They can thus continue to condone murder of unborn considered "unworthy," whose mothers have not reached a specified age, or who themselves have not reached an arbitrary stage of development, or those who have the "wrong" fathers, or those judged by legislators to be "defective" in some way. They automatically make illegal any attempt to save the child of a dying mother by transferring it into an artificial uterus until the biological mother gets well. This is all currently based on how they, not the mothers involved, feel about it, without any rational justification whatever. One has to wonder what would happen if the vast majority of legislators were women, like the three dissenting justices in the Dobbs decision!

Although the future impacts of Dobbs are largely unknown, it is with profound regret that I reluctantly predict that The People will not rationally resolve this problem, either for pregnant mothers or their unborn children. Based on half a century of experience, I believe that American women will continue ineffectually to gripe, bitch, demonstrate and complain. They will demand that other people do things while actually relinquishing to unelected men the mastery, if not the right, over their own bodies. They will thus forego the actual authority of enfranchisement for which their female ancestors fought so hard. The "pro-lifers" will continue to fortify their holier-than-thou position to revile and intimidate desperate mothers as condemned sinners unworthy of respect, love, compassion or help; the United States will degenerate into a patchwork of conflicting laws and social values at odds with each other; obstetricians like David Gunn, John Britton, Bernett Slepian, and George Tiller will continue to be brutally murdered in cold blood in the name of "justice," "pro-life activists" will continue to spend money on vanity license plates, billboards and trips to Washington instead of needy mothers, and countless terrified and abandoned pregnant women will continue to be castigated, condemned and abandoned by the Catholic Church and other "pro-life" organizations!

And millions upon millions of innocent, helpless, unborn and unwanted human beings will continue to be denied any civil rights at all!

As I said: "for SHAME, people! For SHAME!"

** PPS: On February 16, 2024, The Alabama Supreme Court ruled in LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine, P.C. that frozen human embryos are "children" within the meaning of Alabama law, in that a law intended to compensate parents for the wrongful death of their minor child can be used to sue for damages if the "minor child" is a human embryo that has never been in a human uterus. The consequences of this decision have yet to be fully demonstrated.

What is yet to be determined is if the deliberate destruction of unwanted embryos, with the consent of the parents, is "wrongful," or if frozen embryos have any "rights" commonly associated with other children. Click here for a discussion.

*** PPPS: By the way, here is a more recent photo of Catholic teenagers from Covington, Kentucky allegedly preventing abortions in Washington, DC by "not getting involved in politics!" One has to wonder whether they donated as much money to the Diocese of Covington pregnancy support services as they spent to make the trip - or on the "non political" "MAGA" caps and jackets.