North Dakota pro-life establishment groups opposed a bill that would establish equal protection of the laws for preborn babies and criminalize all parties involved in murdering children via abortion.
The legislation, introduced by North Dakota Republican State Representative Lori VanWinkle and backed by eleven other lawmakers, defines human life as starting from fertilization, as well as ensures that the definition of “human being” and “person” is consistently applied with respect to “the offenses of murder and assault, and civil actions for death caused by wrongful acts.”
As members of the North Dakota House Human Services Committee heard testimony about the bill on Wednesday, multiple pro-life lobbyists voiced opposition, noting that the legislation would allow for the prosecution of mothers who willfully choose to murder their preborn babies.
Christopher Dodson, co-director and general counsel of the North Dakota Catholic Conference, submitted testimony saying that the “central problem” with the bill “is the imposition of a criminal punishment on women who have abortions.” Mark Jorritsma, executive director of North Dakota Family Alliance Legislative Action, filed testimony denouncing any “public policy that provides additional ammunition for the other side to continue falsely asserting that Christians hate women who have abortions.” Both men also testified in person on Wednesday before lawmakers at the hearing.
Their testimony comes months after national pro-life groups, such as Students for Life and National Right to Life, signed a letter denouncing a proposed addition to the North Dakota Republican Party platform that would have called for the equal protection of preborn babies, claiming that “turning those women” who have abortions “into criminals is not the way to protect the unborn.” Jorritsma signed on behalf of North Dakota Family Alliance Legislative Action.
Supporters of the abolition bill meanwhile warned that current law in North Dakota enables self-induced abortion by granting blanket immunity to women who willfully have abortions.
Ginna Cross, the director of Alliance Family Services, a series of crisis pregnancy centers in Wisconsin, testified on Wednesday in favor of the bill, rejecting the claim that women are victims of abortion. Cross told lawmakers that “you cannot say on one hand that women are highly intelligent, which we are, but on the other hand say that with all of the information and technology available at our fingertips every second of the day, we have absolutely no idea that when we become pregnant we are pregnant with our own living, precious, human baby.”
One report published by the Foundation to Abolish Abortion last year found that hundreds of preborn babies have been murdered by means of self-induced abortion in North Dakota, a phenomenon that has continued in several other states which claim to have banned abortion.
That same concern was raised by grassroots conservative groups and officials in the North Dakota Republican Party, who previously sent a letter to lawmakers in support of the legislation.
They also contended that the bill would ensure “every preborn child enjoys the same legal protections from homicide that protect the lives of born people,” noting that “at the moment of fertilization, God creates a new human being with a unique genetic code.” The grassroots advocates added that the legislation aligns with biblical commands to “pursue justice for the fatherless child” while also “showing no partiality or discrimination” in the justice system.
Despite the support from Christian and conservative entities for such legislation, pro-life establishment groups have opposed abolition bills across the country, usually on the basis of refusing to penalize women who willfully murder their babies, or while claiming that establishing equal protection of the laws for preborn babies would not be politically expedient.
