One of the new favorite techniques of the anti-abortion crowd is the Sanctity of Life law. It has been defeated at the federal level several times, but now states are starting to pass copycat legislation, like the one Kansas Governor Sam Brownback signed recently. And the tug-of-war between pro-choice and anti-abortion sides once again begins.
Me, I used to cheat at tug-of-war, and I want to do it again: let go of the rope and let the other team fall in the mud. Fine, a fetus can legally be a human being. Okay, you win, congratulations! However...
Once the fetus is declared a person, the anti-abortionists have created a new problem: if this new human being is there without the permission of the woman who owns the womb, then the new human is a criminal trespasser. (They grow up so fast.) And, when combined with another darling legislative technique of the right, Stand Your Ground, the anti-abortionists have just accidentally made abortion completely legal.
In Kansas, for example, their Stand Your Ground-style law says that a person is empowered to use reasonable force to protect herself from harm. Pregnancy carries a great risk of harm. Of all the ways that Americans have to remove the intruder, abortion is the safest and most reasonable method.
Abortion is, then, no longer an issue of a woman's choice. It is now a matter of personal defense. And we all know how important personal defense is to the GOP/NRA.
No, I don't really think that an embryo is a criminal. I think that an embryo is a clump of cells with no more claim to legal status than a booger. However, if this is the new legislative paradigm, that embryos are people too, then abortion becomes a necessary and inevitable defense against this new criminal class.