Pro-Life "Personhood" Bill Hotly Debated on Utah's Capitol Hill
ABC -4
by Chris Vanocur
February 2, 2012
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - ABC 4 first reported the story about a Utah legislative resolution which may say that life starts at conception.
Thursday, Senator Aaron Osmond, the legislator behind the resolution, said his constituents simply want him to explore this issue.
But that explanation only enraged his opponents more.
Senator Osmond began Thursday by apologizing to his fellow legislators.
He said he didn’t want his Pro-Life "Personhood" resolution to overshadow other issues like education.
Osmond told reporters, "I do not want this to be a distraction from that and I will not allow it to be so."
But Utah Democratic Chairman Jim Dabakis says too late.
Dabakis told ABC 4,
"We're deeply disappointed in the new young Senator Osmond, that he would align himself with Gayle Ruzicka and the extremists of the Republican Party."
Right now, Osmond's "Personhood" resolution has no text, only the title,
"Joint Resolution on Human Life."
Osmond claims he has not yet decided if he will run it this session,
“I wanted to communicate to my constituents and, frankly, throughout the state that this is an opportunity to open some dialogue on this topic."
Its comments like this which caught the attention of Dabakis,
"If you're a senator, if you're elected, if you're on the floor of the senate, be a senator and stop doing
things at the behest of some trial balloon. Take a stand senator."
And back and forth it went all day Thursday.
The governor - in an election year - seemed to want no part of this debate.
While the ACLU said "Personhood" bills have lots of unintended consequences.
This is a point quickly latched on to by Dabakis.
He asked,
"Does Senator Osmond want to give a social security number to every fetus?"
Senator Osmond says he wants to get more input before he decides what to do with this resolution.
He told ABC 4 and others,
“Once I have made a decision what to do, I will certainly let you know."
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