Rhetoric isn't fact and a fetus isn't a 'person' just because state's lawyer says so

For all the defenses of Iowa’s new fetal heartbeat law offered in court Friday by the attorney representing the state, his central argument hinged on a premise that has never been recognized as fact: That a fetus becomes a baby once it has a heartbeat.

Had that been established, the U.S. Supreme Court wouldn’t have recognized women’s constitutional right to abortions in its 1973 landmark ruling on Roe v. Wade. Nor would so many states have rejected abortion bans, even as they have imposed limits on the practice. They wouldn't sanction legal murder.

The personhood claim is rhetorical, not factual. The beauty of a pluralistic society is that we get to live by our own belief systems, within reason. We are not free to impose them on others.

But that is exactly what Iowa’s legislative majority and governor did in passing and signing the nation's most restrictive abortion law. They thumbed their noses at rulings and constitutions and established science. They imposed their religious positions on a secular state where at least half of people polled think it goes too far. They made abortion illegal after a fetal heartbeat is detectable.

Read more: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/rekha-basu/2018/12/07/rekha-basu-fetus-isnt-person-despite-states-rhetoric-iowa-abortion-fetal-heart-bill-abortion/2244631002/