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North Dakota lawmakers vote that 'personhood' starts at conception | World Breaking News | News.com.au
Excellent precedence has been set.NORTH Dakota has become the first US state to move towards passing a law that defines "personhood" as starting at the moment of conception, which would effectively outlaw abortion, pro-life groups said.
Lawmakers in the North Dakota lower house voted 51 to 41 on Tuesday to pass the Personhood of Children Act, which confers the same basic rights on "all human beings from the beginning of their biological development, including the pre-born, partially born."
"This is the first state legislature that has actually acted in a positive way" on a personhood law, Judie Brown, president of the American Life League (ALL), said.
"As of today there are 19 states that have laws proposed, but no other state has got this far," she said.
Voters in Colorado rejected by three-to-one a personhood amendment to their state constitution in a referendum in November.
The North Dakota Bill is expected to go before the state senate in around two weeks.
If passed, it would be used to challenge the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe versus Wade decision, which legalised abortion in the US and gave the country some of the least restrictive abortion laws in the world, experts said.
Roe v Wade states that women have the absolute right to terminate a pregnancy during the first three months and a qualified right to do so up to six months.
Personhood laws are crafted to challenge Roe v Wade and return the decision-making process on whether or not abortion is legal to the states, Brian Rooney of the Thomas More Law Centre said.
"The purpose of these laws is to challenge Roe v Wade. Once Roe v Wade is overturned, it doesn't mean abortion is illegal in all 50 states but it says that the states decide what to do with abortion,'' Mr Rooney said.