A Personhood Amendment, for Ladies

Shaker ma_am recently suggested, in response to the onslaught of anti-choice legislation that includes encroachments on reproductive rights that undermine the autonomy of women and other people with uteri as well as proposed "Personhood Amendments" to confer personhood on fetuses, that we need a Personhood Amendment for women and other people with uteri to establish our rights as autonomous people. I suggested we compose the amendment, and then try to get a clever Democratic Senator to introduce it into the US Senate.

So we did!

And then we composed a petition, and ma_am launched it at Change.org.

Here is our prosed Personhood Amendment:

A person identifying as a woman and/or having a uterus shall retain all of the full, basic, and fundamental rights of a US citizen as guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Congress and the States shall make no law that infringes upon a person's life, including but not limited to access to life-saving or life-improving healthcare, and/or medicines and procedures deemed necessary or beneficial by a medical professional and/or by the person having the uterus, procurement of which shall not by denied in and of itself by the presence of a uterus. Congress and the States shall make no law that infringes upon a person's liberty, including but not limited to autonomy over hir own body and the ability to make decisions regarding hir own healthcare. Congress and the States shall make no law that interferes with a person's pursuit of happiness, including but not limited to access to a full spectrum of reproductive options, freedom from forcible reproduction, and the ability to make decisions regarding family planning and family resources.

Please sign the petition in support of the Personhood Amendment here. Once it has 1,000 signatures, it will be delivered to Senators Patty Murray (WA), Al Franken (MN), and Kristen Gillibrand (NY) with a request to introduce the proposed amendment into the legislative session.

And please spread the word about the petition via social networking sites. Let's change this conversation. It's time to change "women's rights are human rights" from a radical statement to settled fact.

Teaspoons ahoy!