from the LA Times:
Legislation granting fertilized embryos "personhood" has gained momentum in at least three state legislatures. The strategy — which has been used to try to undermine the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion — is now aimed at embryonic stem cell research. The scientific field uses stem cells from human embryos, which can develop into different kinds of adult cells, to seek answers about human health.
But if they actually get their way, there are some fascinating implications...
(below the fold)
Tax Deductions.
If I lived in one of those states, I'd go out and create a bunch of embryos and freeze them and call them "dependents." A tax deduction for each one.
And I expect further ways to game the system.
Adoption.
Just as now there is an effort in the Mormon Church to baptize people posthumously, I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if someone tried to ADOPT some or all of these frozen embryos -- at least the ones in the confines of these states.
Rationale: because the parents are BAD parents and won't bring the embryos to term. Can't wait for that lawsuit!
Social Security Number.
Can you see someone trying to get a social security number for an embryo? That would bring the Feds into it (if they weren't there already from the federal tax deductions).
Medicaid.
Can an unemployed mother of 27 (embryos) collect child support? What about getting Medicaid to pay for their implantation?
Truancy.
Oh, and how do you compute the age of an embryo, anyway? From the point of conception? (That embryo is 6 years old and by law must attend school!)
Can it vote absentee at age 18? (even if it is STILL only 8 cells and probably not viable?)
Crossing State Lines.
Now, I wouldn't be surprised to see a flask with LN2 (liquid nitrogen) and a couple-of-hundred embryos fleeing the jurisdiction of one of these states. What kind of legislative response might you expect to see?
New Law: you cannot take that embryo across state lines unless it is implanted.
"Normally Implanted" embryos.
I wouldn't be surprised to see the next step be a requirement to account for each and every conception that takes place within the state, OR TRAVELS THROUGH IT.
And God help you if you have a miscarriage. Better have proof it wasn't an abortion. Put a GPS locator in every pregnancy test, along with a wireless squawk for every positive result. (Or negative!)
In-vitro Fertilization.
Since only a percentage of these embryos actually survive to be born, are you actually damaging life by implantation? I mean if the embryo population is larger than the potential "born" population, wouldn't the state prefer to keep them as embryos?
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Not even looking at the idiocy of granting personhood to an 8-celled (barely) organism, there are so many ways to game the system once such a bonehead move is passed that I fully expect some interesting tricks to take advantage of this.
My response will be to make those legal "persons" pay taxes.
BTW, I do wish that this was meta. Sigh.