Family Life

02.04.11 | Sarah Harnisch

There is a Senate bill in the works that could overturn Roe versus Wade. The famous bill making abortions legal again. Senator Roger Wicker is sponsoring the "Life at Conception Act", which will define personhood from the moment of conception. The bill has 13 co-sponsors thus far. In Harry Blackmun's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, he wrote that "if personhood is established, the appellant's case collapses, for the fetus' right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the {14th] amendment." Under Senate Bill 91, a "human person" and a "human being" includes every individual "at all stages of life, including, but not limited to, the moment of fertilization, cloning and other moment at which an individual...comes into being." If this bill is enacted into law, it thus will not only provide protection for unborn babies, it will follow the path Justice Blackmun laid out 38 years ago for overturning Roe v. Wade. Representative Duncan Hunter has introduced a parallel bill in the U.S. House which currently has 53 co-sponsors.