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Eugene Robinson: 'Frankly Insane' to Think Fertilized Egg 'Has Personhood'

February 16, 2012

RACHEL MADDOW: Everybody reads the same polls on this. Everybody knows what Americans believe and practice about birth control, but yet we are seeing this big push for the personhood legislation in Virginia. It failed in Mississippi; it failed twice in Colorado. In Mississippi, even after they got clobbered by the voters, they are trying now through the legislature to bring it back up again—even do it by referendum again. We're seeing it brought forth in Virginia and in all these other states. What about this issue seems to be a winning argument to Republicans? Why do they like it if the polls aren’t with them?

EUGENE ROBINSON: Well, the polls are not with them. The voters are not with them, so clearly it’s not a winning issue. They can’t believe this is a good idea politically, so the only thing I can figure out, Rachel, is that it’s based on a wrong and frankly insane belief that a fertilized egg is a fully formed person. And has personhood, and that preventing the implantation of that egg is murder. It baffles me as to what other explanation there could be. They can be sincerely mad on this subject, I think, and maybe they are.