Personhood bill set to pass House, though likely to fail to reach threshold to move to voters
The Montana State Capitol in Helena on Wednesday, April 26, 2023. (Photo by Mike Clark for the Daily Montanan)
A bill seeking an amendment to the Montana Constitution to confer 'personhood' rights on embryos passed the House after a 57-43 vote on Tuesday.
In support of House Bill 316, sponsor Rep. Lee Deming, R-Laurel, argued in committee that voters hadn't fully understood what they had done when they voted to add abortion as a constitutional right in CI-128 in the 2024 election.
But the bill received significant opposition in both its committee hearing and on the floor Tuesday.
Opponents said it would nix Montanan's right to an abortion, as well as access to in vitro fertilization, while Deming argued there was no greater violation of privacy and dignity than abortion. The right to privacy has been used in court cases protecting the right to an abortion.
'The human being in the womb possesses his or her own right of privacy, again, I can't think of a greater violation of privacy than abortion,' Deming said. 'The state has a vested interest in protecting the lives of the most vulnerable human beings. And the human being in the womb has a life interest equal to that of his or her mother.'
During the floor discussion, Rep. Greg Overstreet, R-Stevensville, said the personhood issue was comparable to slavery.
'In pre-Civil War Southern states, African-Americans did not have the legal standing of personhood,' Overstreet said. 'Why is that? Because you can't buy and sell people if they have the legal status of personhood. Because it's so easy to deny people their basic rights if you say they're not people.'
HB 316 offers no recourse for victims of rape or incest. It passed along party lines out of the House Judiciary Committee. The bill could even outlaw birth control, Rep. SJ Howell, D-Missoula, said on the floor.
Howell mentioned other issues, specifically surrounding choices being made for someone who is pregnant. They said someone could push for specific healthcare a woman wouldn't want, or that as written, the legislation could be used to possibly prevent a mother from being able to move out of state.
Abusers could potentially use the right of the embryo to dictate how someone lives their life, Howell added.
'I think one of the serious unintended consequences of an initiative like this is that it creates a legal pathway for more of that cohesive control,' Howell said. 'Control over a woman by someone who does not have her best interests at heart.'
Proposed constitutional amendments need 100 out of the Legislature's 150 total members to pass. Given the House vote, 43 senators would have to vote for it — an unlikely occurrence given the partisan divisions of the issue and just 32 Republicans serving in the upper chamber.
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