Personhood Florida and Abortion Abolition

By Jay Rogers - Posted at The Forerunner:

Author’s note: I am writing this as the director of The Forerunner and president of Personhood Florida Education. This is not an “official” statement from any Personhood group. I do not speak for the national groups, Personhood USA or Personhood Alliance. That being said, I have spent countless hours speaking to the founders of both of these organizations. I believe I am representing their views accurately, although I need to emphasize that I cannot technically speak for them.

Please also see the links for The United States of America 2.0: The Great Reset. This is short primer on doctrine of nullification, which has been one of the foundational tenets of Personhood movement since its beginning. You may either order copies or I have posted all the articles that make up the booklet online for free.

What is Personhood?

Personhood stands for the total abolition of abortion with no exceptions.
In fact, we should state at the outset that you cannot stand for Personhood without standing for the complete and immediate abolition of abortion. One naturally flows from the other.

Not only does Personhood embrace the idea of the immediate abolition of abortion, it goes far beyond that to include many other sanctity and dignity of life issues. Personhood advocates ought to endorse any and all bills and amendments to state constitutions that are in line with the goal of recognizing and protecting the God-given right to life of all human beings.

Two Major Objections to Personhood: Timing and Language

In the beginning of the founding of Personhood Florida, we were told by Personhood USA co-founder, Cal Zastrow, that we would hear two common arguments against Personhood coming from other pro-life groups.

1. “We don’t think the timing is right for this.”
2. “We don’t like your initiative language.”

In other words, all national, state and local pro-life organizations will say they want to end all abortion. But their strategy to end all abortion is different from ours. The first objection can be handled by asking when would be a good time to end all child murder. If the organization is not currently working a plan to end all abortion, then it begs the question as to why they are not doing so. Many believe that their goal ought to be to overturn Roe v. Wade first and only then work state-by-state toward a Human Life Amendment. I’ll show below why that is not Personhood’s strategy, although we would agree with seeing Roe overturned.

The second objection can be handled by asking what language have they proposed that would end all abortion with no exceptions or compromise. If they have such a plan, then we will support it. We support all such no compromise initiatives. We will not oppose any bill, citizen’s initiative or legal strategy that would end all abortion. But in nearly all cases, they have no such proposed legislation.

Foundational Principles of Personhood

The following propositions represent some foundational principles taught to us by Cal Zastrow, co-founder of Personhood USA; Daniel Backer, founder of Personhood Alliance; as well as other state Personhood affiliate leaders. The founding board members of Personhood Florida have held to these principles for many years, even prior to the Personhood movement gaining team in 2008.

1. Personhood seeks to ignore Roe v. Wade — not reverse it

Some believe that the Personhood strategy was formulated as a result of the terms “person” and “personhood” being used by Justice Harry Andrew Blackmun in section 9 of his opinion in Roe v. Wade. This is incorrect. Although we would welcome the overturning of Roe, this is not a foundational principle of our strategy to legally end abortion.

Read more here.