I'm not sure where to put this since it covers abortion and immigration in the most innovative of ways.

Yesterday, I posted a bit on my own blog about attempts at legistlation in TN to chip away at abortion rights. Among the suggestions were new definition of "person" definining a personhood as beginning at conception (there are some states that may already have this definition and/or that are trying to legislate it) and another defining person at 5 weeks after conception (based on serious misunderstandings of neurological development). I theorized the reasons for the legislative attempts at these definitions is to lay claim that since the US Consitution affords all civil rights to persons in section 1



In the past, "pro-lifers" have tried to argue that by recognizing "persons born" in the US that they are also recognizing persons unborn such that the unborn are granted the same rights as those born and should therefor make abortion illegal in the US (it doesn't fly because they ignore the rest of the sentence, I make that point in my blog posting). Anyway, Cara from Reproductive Rights Blog made a dead brilliant comment that in trying to legislate all rights from point of conception based on achievement of personhood in utero, the US would have to now recognize anyone conceived in the US as having achieved personhood and would actually form an automatic right to citizenship. Even if they argued that the Consitution grants citizenship to those born in the US, there could be a legitimate arguement that you would have to automatically naturalize the child upon birth (and possibly that you could not deport the mother while carrying the child, because that would be infringing on its right to be born in the country it achieved personhood in). This intentional development of inconsistencies in the constitution by creating new, previously unheard of/not considered definitions of person could be a ploy by the right to further shred the constitution and replace it with one more to their own liking, but they need to be called on it (because if they admit what they're doing they may find the apathetic waking up).

they need to keep their damn noses out of people's ovaries.

The issue of how to define person is important in many context. One convention of defining complex entities is to describe what it is (its structure)
and what it does (process). A part of describing what something is may include
saying what it is not. A distinction should be made between the word, "person"
and actual person the word refers to.
A person is a live huminoid organism representing the most highly developed
species in the mammal class and sufficiently developed to survive outside the womb with normal
care taking assistance and possess the potential for developing self-awareness
or consciousness. Persons are behaving organisms with the potential for
developing agency for their own self-maintainence and growth. Each person is
genetically programmed to integrate perceiving, conceptualizing, feeling, intending
and acting in the service of organismic functioning and Self-in-Situation adaptation.

Hmmm...neat idea. I can imagine the pro-lifers passing that law in Tennessee, followed by a tsunami of "tourists" to Nashville who check into a hotel, then three days later apply to the INS for citizenship based on the imperative to care for their in utero citizen child.

Oh, yeah, BABY!!! Let's set up this loophole for the world to walk through.