THE SENATE

S.C.R. NO.

161

TWENTY-FIFTH LEGISLATURE, 2010

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 

 

 

 

 

SENATE CONCURRENT

RESOLUTION

 

 

requesting the legislature to define personhood and protect the status and legal rights of a natural person.

 

 


     WHEREAS, the term "person" grants human beings certain innate rights, such as the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and

 

     WHEREAS, in 1973, Justice Harry Blackmun wrote in the majority opinion for Roe v. Wade:

 

"The appellee and certain amici [pro-life advocates] argue that the fetus is a ‘person’ within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well-known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment."; and

 

     WHEREAS, during Justice Blackmun’s time, the well-known facts of fetal development were a far cry from what is known today; and

 

     WHEREAS, in 1973, most people held the belief that life began at quickening, or when a woman first feels movement of the baby in the womb at eighteen to twenty-four weeks; and

 

     WHEREAS, some people even held to the "recapitulation theory" -- the scientifically debunked notion that the human baby underwent an entire evolutionary cycle in the womb, being first a simple one-celled creature, then later a fish, mammal, and finally a human; and

 

     WHEREAS, the science in 1973 was not able to prove, as it can now, that a fully human and unique individual exists at the moment of fertilization and continues to grow through various stages of development in a continuum, until natural death from old age; and

 

     WHEREAS, a clear definition of a pre-born baby as a person will provide it with the same right to life as all human beings and will satisfy the "Blackmun hole", an admission by the United States Supreme Court that if personhood could be established for a pre-born, the arguments in Roe v. Wade would collapse; now, therefore,

 

     BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-fifth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2010, the House of Representatives concurring, that the Legislature is requested to take necessary steps to define and guarantee personhood -- that every person, from the beginning of biological development including fertilization, is provided all the rights and protections as a human being; and

 

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the President of the United States, each member of Hawaii's congressional delegation, the Governor, the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

 

 

 

 

OFFERED BY:

_____________________________

 

 

Report Title: 

Personhood