The Voice wrote:Georgia Passes Nation's First Embryo Adoption Law
ATLANTA -- By a vote of 108 to 61, the Georgia House sent the nation's first ever embryo adoption bill, HB 388, to the desk of Governor Sonny Perdue for him to sign into law.
"We are pleased that we are making headway in our goal of establishing personhood for the pre-born" says Daniel Becker, President of Georgia Right to Life. "Gone are the terms designating the human child at an embryonic stage as property ... devoid of rights." says Becker.
The language of the bill stops short of declaring full personhood for the child but does introduce new terms that acknowledge for the first time that an embryo has "rights and responsibilities" that are owed to it under Georgia law. "Legal embryo custodian" replaces "embryo donor" throughout Georgia's new code sections dealing with embryo adoption. No longer is an embryo described as being "donated" by its genetic parent.
"Gametes, cars, old clothes and other property are 'donated'" says the bill's author, House Rep. James Mills, "not children ... they are adopted."
It also clarifies that an embryo's life begins "at a single-celled" stage. "This is an important distinction as we see the medical community attempt to lessen the personhood of an embryo by re-defining a zygote to be a 'pre-embryo'" says Becker.
http://www.thevoicemagazine.com/headlin ... n-law.html
So - they are quite open and up front about the intent of the bill to define life as beginning at the moment of conception, and they have allocated rights to single-cells that grant them a legal status as individuals.
What horrifies me most, is that this could be used to stop abortion completely. If you declare the pregnant woman unfit to make decisions for her offspring - such as, if she seeks abortion - you can take away her status as custodian, and force her to carry to term a baby allocated to another person, or the state.