WorldNetDaily has a storyon the personhood movement, which is currently leading efforts in 32 states to define the unborn child as a legal person. Personhood USA says that defining the unborn child as a legal person will directly challenge Roe v. Wade. Pro-lifers can reasonably disagree whether these initiatives are the best way to advance the pro-life cause — Judie Brown of American Life League is for them, Clarke Forsythe of Americans United for Life is skeptical — but they demonstrate a pro-life movement that is very much alive and capable of coming up with new strategies and tactics; that is more than can be said of the tired pro-abortion movement that attempts to squelch all debate by declaring the issue has been decided and refuses to debate pro-lifers.
Forsythe is convincing in making the legal case that it doesn’t actually address Justice Harry Blackman’s issue that we (the court? society? medicine?) don’t know when human life begins. But that doesn’t mean pro-lifers shouldn’t push for such laws because there might be other benefits even if it doesn’t result in a frontal assault on Blackman’s foolish 1973 reasoning. The cause of protecting the unborn makes gains whenever people are thinking and talking about the issue. The personhood movement gets society thinking about the unborn and abortion and that helps the pro-life cause in the long run.
