House Bill 1572 states it is the Legislature's intention that any state law using the word individual or person "includes any organism with the genome of homo sapiens." Supporters view HB1572 as a step toward outlawing abortion. But, if it passes, it will hurt all pregnant women and create unprecedented dangers to maternal and fetal health.

Constitutional law ensures that people have the right to make their own health-care decisions. Yet, numerous cases from across the country illustrate that if fetuses are recognized as legal persons, pregnant women could lose these rights. Laws like HB1572 enable the state to intervene in pregnant women's lives in ways that are dangerous to both pregnant women and their children.

For example, Amber Marlowe discovered this when in labor with her seventh child. She felt she did not need a cesarean section and objected to unnecessary surgery. The hospital disagreed and obtained a court order giving the hospital custody of the fetus before, during and after delivery, and the authority to force her to undergo surgery.

Before the order was issued, Amber (in active labor) fled to another hospital, where she delivered a healthy baby naturally. Intervention was based on the claim that fetuses had separate legal rights - exactly the ones HB1572 would establish.

Women should not lose their rights to make medical decisions for themselves and their children while pregnant. If HB1572 passes, North Dakota's courts will have jurisdiction whenever doctors or family members disagree with a pregnant woman's decisions.

To oppose the recognition of fetal personhood as a matter of state law is not to deny the value of potential life. Rather, it is to recognize that rewriting the state's law to extend all rights to the unborn from the moment of fertilization will exclude women from decision-making the moment they become pregnant.

(The writer is the executive director of the North Dakota Women's Network. - Editor)