PERSONHOOD NEVADA COMMENTARY WITH RESPECT TO NEVADA'S RENO-AREA PROLIFE GROUPS

“All of us in the life-affirming movement share a noble and unifying goal. That goal is the protection of everyone’s right to live. While some may differ with our approach, we applaud the productive efforts of all who advance this cause,” said Olaf Vancura, PhD, President of Personhood Nevada.

Board member Ken Wilson added, “The fight to end the killing of prenatal children takes place on multiple fronts. We respect and support every prolife organization’s worthy efforts to save and protect human life.”

Commented Board member Anna Serra-Radford, “I ask every citizen of Nevada to take a good look at this Amendment. It speaks to all of us. We have seen thus far what discarding the rights of our prenatal children has ushered in — the dehumanization of the elderly, handicapped, ill and mentally disabled. Personhood seeks to restore and protect these rights for all.”

The following statement may be attributed to Personhood Nevada:

The right to live is the preeminent civil right. This Amendment protects every member of our human family throughout the continuum of life. Our right to live is not an arbitrary privilege granted solely to the elite only to be denied to the least desirable among us. It is not some legal gift given to the young only to be stripped away from our elderly and “unproductive”. It is a fundamental right… our bedrock Constitutional truth upon which all other rights and laws stand. Without our right to live, and live freely, our very lives are property whose ownership is not our own.

The right to live freely as equal members of society has always been fought and won at great cost. The United States Constitution, ratified in 1787, in Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 outlined how our population was to be counted. The infamous “3/5 Compromise” counted free persons as 1 and slaves as 3/5. It was not until the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865 that slavery, the “right” to own another human being, was abolished.

But suppose a law had been crafted, say in 1800, requiring “a 24-hour waiting period before beating your slave” or “notification (if under 18) of your parents before killing your slave”? Incremental laws, such as these, would have done nothing to establish the equality of all African Americans. Indeed, they would have further entrenched and legitimized slavery. The core problem then, as now, is that some Americans were not considered Americans at all. Though they were human, they were unworthy of being counted as people.

Prenatal children today are considered property, not fellow Americans. Though they are human, they are not considered people. “Incremental laws” that attempt to decrease the killing of prenatal children in fact do nothing to address the root problem, namely that prenatal Americans are deliberately denied their civil rights as persons. Does Our Creator agree with laws that state, “If you wait 24 hours, you may have an abortion”? Obviously not. The sober truth is, in every abortion, someone dies.

Our prenatal children today have no civil rights; they are counted much less than 3/5… they are counted as zero. The people of Nevada, through this Amendment, will correct this injustice once and for all. The right to live is not a timing issue; rather time is of the essence.

For more information on the Nevada Personhood Initiative, please visit: www.PersonhoodNevada.com.