American RTL urges support of Rep. LaBruzzo's Personhood Bill

Contact: Donna Ballentine, American Right To Life, 888-888-ARTL, office@AmericanRTL.org 

NEW ORLEANS, June 7, 2011 /Christian Newswire/ -- American Right To Life thanks Louisiana's Rep. John LaBruzzo for his courage to make Louisiana the first state in the nation to protect all innocent human beings from being intentionally killed by recognizing the Right to Life for all persons, regardless of age, size or dependency.

"The proposed law HB 645, would protect the right to life of unborn children from fertilization," said Joe Riccobono, ARTL's Louisiana spokesman. "It defines feticide as the killing of an unborn child whether surgically or by a lethal drug," said Riccobono, who as a temporary Katrina transplant to Denver and played a leading role in Colorado's statewide personhood amendment campaigns in 2008 and 2010.

Despite the state's many abortion regulations, nearly 100,000 Louisiana children have been killed by surgical abortion in the last decade and the rate of loss of children may actually be increasing due to the proliferation of chemical abortifacients. This is consistent with the nationwide trend in which pro-lifers have passed hundreds of abortion "regulations," yet the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute reports that neither the total number of abortions nor the rate of abortions have decreased in the last decade. Our research at AmericanRTL.org/abortion-regs-dont-work shows that abortions have only "appeared" to decrease in number whereas they have actually increased, including by chemical abortifacients.

Testifying for an earlier version of Rep. LaBruzzo's bill, Dr. W.A. Krotoski, having taught at LSU and Tulane, stated, "From the moment of fertilization, we have all been human.  Simply stated, we are all in a virtually seamless process of growth and development; and we are each truly unique, possessing individually-specific DNA -- and personhood."  Dr. Krotoski even notes that a human individual exists for about five days before implanting in the mother's womb. During this time the baby makes its first cry to the mother, by a pheromone, asking her to get ready to feed the little one. ARTL urges all Louisiana state representatives today to approve the sponsor's amendments and to pass HB 625.

A recent Gallup survey shows that, "More Americans are pro-life than pro-choice" and unintentionally documents the progress since the modern personhood movement began in 2007 (and with bills like HB 645), that the pro-life ranks are swelling in a powerful way. The recent decrease among those who think all abortion should be legal is matched by the increase among those who think all abortion should be illegal. "Personhood is where the progress is being made, not in the muddy middle," said Riccobono.

LaBruzzo's bill would recover what has been lost from the original Hippocratic Oath dating back to Ancient Greece. Lolita Hanks, president of American Right to Life, says, "Louisiana has the chance to stop discrimination against the smallest and youngest citizens in America by voting yes on HB 645. Personhood is a legal status all Americans take for granted yet the unborn are denied it. Now is the time to do what is right, for our own humanity and future generations."

See the growing number of pro-family organizations, religious leaders, and legal experts supporting personhood on the "Advocates" page at Georgia Right To Life's personhood.net, including Dr. Charles Rice, professor emeritus of Notre Dame School of Law, who wrote, "There is nothing in the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States which conclusively forbids [any state] to define and protect the rights of the unborn child beyond the extent to which those rights are recognized and protected under the United States Constitution."