In Mississippi there is a measure on the ballet that would grant a fetus personhood. It is expected that there will be similar proposals in other states too. This proposition would define a fertilized egg as a person protected by all of the legal rights of the Constitution.
http://floridaindependent.com/54147/feta...This law could allow police to prosecute a woman for murder for using an IUD or other birth control devise, that prevents a fertilized egg from seating in the uterus.
The courts have already granted corporations personhood. Guaranteed all of the equal rights of the 14th amendment to the Constitution and has ruled that their right to lobby (bribe) lawmakers and to influence (buy) elections are protected by the first amendment.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read...Now PETA is suing Sea World for protection of whales under the 13th amendment of the constitution. "Our understanding of animals grows every day. Animals are no longer regarded as "things" to dominate, but as breathing, feeling beings with families, dialects, intellect, and emotions. Just as we look back with shame at a time when we enslaved other humans and viewed some people as property less deserving of protection and consideration, we will look back on our treatment of these animals with shame. The 13th Amendment exists to abolish slavery in all its forms — and this lawsuit is the next step."
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/con...So if a collection of cells can be considered a person, and if an inanimate organization can be considered a person, can a whale be considered a person and given the protection of the Constitution?
What about our primate near relatives? Ko Ko the gorilla has all of the emotions we have, She has a vocabulary of 1000 words and can communicate quite clearly. She is said to have the intelligence of a 6 year old human child. Shouldn't she have the same Constitutional rights of a human child?
http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/koko-the-...Cetaceans (Whales and Dolphins) Also have feelings and emotions as we do. They are very intelligent and have names for other dolphins and even speak in the third person of other dolphins by name when talking to others.
http://creation.com/deep-secrets-cetacea...Cetaceans have a larger brain relative to their bodies than humans do. They may even be more intelligent than we (So Long and Thanks for All of the Fish). So should they be granted personhood?
To consider these questions one must step into the subjective world of moral relativity.
Yes a fertilized human egg is a living human entity but is it a person? There is the potential for this collection of cells to become a person – If it is seeded successfully in the uterus, and if it isn't expelled for some reason, and makes it through birth, then it is considered a person. But obviously the fetus can be considered a person earlier than birth, because the baby can be removed by C-Section and survive.
Roe V. Wade declared that a woman's rights take precedence, and that the fetus has no rights until after the 24th week. The court ruled that the 24th week established viability, or that this is the earliest point at which it can be proven that the fetus has the capacity to have a meaningful life as a person. Even if taken out of the woman a fetus before this stage cannot survive. Later viability was moved back to 22 weeks.
http://civilliberty.about.com/od/abortio...Religious conservatives reject the viability standard and consider any fetus a person that should be afforded the same rights as an adult. In some cases conservatives grant the fetus greater status than adult mother. The "Protect Life Act" overrides the requirement that ER doctors treat every patient and do what's necessary to save the patient's life,— the Act allows doctors to refuse necessary care to a pregnant woman if that care will kill the fetus. They can refuse to save the life of the mother to protect the fetus.
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/20...Scientists have found that they can take almost any cell from different parts of the body and grow new body parts.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/...With human cloning techniques scientists will soon have the ability to clone humans from skin cells.
http://www.globalchange.com/clonech.htmDoes that mean that every skin cell that is sloughed off from the body should be granted personhood because it has the potential to become another human being?
Religious conservatives think that a collection of cells has the same rights as adult humans, but they also think that some adult humans are worth more than other humans. Most wouldn't hesitate to blow someone away with their gun if someone looked threatening to them, or broke into their house. Recently Israel demonstrated that a Palestinian human is only worth about 1/1000th of an Israeli human, when they traded 1000 violent Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one Israeli soldier.
Most religious conservatives don't consider the deaths of innocent Muslims to be of any value. They consider Americans to be worth more than people from any other country. They consider Christians to be worth more than non Christians.
So the religious conservatives have no problem with moral relativity with grown people. They think those on death row, those who are threatening, those of other religions, and even those with different political philosophies (liberals and socialists) are worthy of death, but they are not willing to consider the well being of a pregnant woman and consider her to be less important than her unborn fetus.
So where would everyone fit on the morally relative yardstick of conservatives if the fetus is rated #1 and the woman 2, and corporations 3, and bad guys probably around 5, and liberals about 6, and killers 8-9, and Muslims about 12, and Muslim bad guys back around a hundred, and Muslim killers a thousand.
Where on that moral worth yardstick would Orcas be? Where would our Jungle brothers the great apes be? Where would Chimpanzees who are even closer to humans on the genetic scale be?