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MONTPELIER, Vermont, January 25, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Not to be outdone by New York’s recently enacted law to permit abortions at virtually any point in pregnancy as a “fundamental right,” lawmakers in Vermont have introduced an abortion-protection law that may in some ways be even more extreme.

More than 90 members of the state House are cosponsoring legislation to codify a “fundamental right” to “have an abortion,” CBS affiliate WCAX reports. The bill is meant to ensure abortion remains legal in Vermont regardless of a future Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

“States are a critical backstop to the further erosion and restriction of reproductive health care,” said Meagan Gallagher of Planned Parenthood-Northern New England. “We must pass the House abortion rights bill and the Senate equal rights constitutional amendment to ensure that reproductive rights are protected in Vermont.”

The pro-abortion proposal has the support of liberal Republican Gov. Phil Scott.

The bill’s language declares that “every individual has the fundamental right to choose or refuse contraception or sterilization,” and that “every individual who becomes pregnant has the fundamental right to choose to carry a pregnancy to term, give birth to a child, or to have an abortion.”

Vermont already lacks a law requiring parental consent if a minor is procuring an abortion. The bill makes no mention of an age restriction on individuals choosing to be sterilized, and its reference to pregnant women as “individuals” rather than females or mothers is likely a nod to transgender ideology and the now-common liberal claim that men can be pregnant.

“No State or local law enforcement shall prosecute any individual for inducing, performing, or attempting to induce or perform the individual’s own abortion,” it says, as well as prohibiting any “public entity” from restricting any sort of benefits or services on the basis of an individual’s decision to have or a medical worker’s decision to commit an abortion. The language suggesting there be no prosecution for do-it-yourself abortions raises questions about whether there would be adequate legal protections against infanticide in Vermont.

For good measure, it also declares that a “fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus shall not have independent rights under Vermont law.” The bill doesn’t include New York’s language stripping preborn babies from state homicide laws, but Vermont already lacked protections for babies killed in attacks on their pregnant mothers.

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At National Review, the Discovery Institute’s Wesley Smith warns that the bill’s explicit denial of any prenatal rights “would fully authorize the horrible fetal-part selling practices in which Planned Parenthood was caught engaging,” and “could also permit odious practices beyond abortion, for example creating a free space for germ-line genetic engineering” or keeping preborn humans “in an artificial womb for purposes of experimentation.”

The last scenario may sound like science fiction, he says, but actually happened as far back as 1968, as a 26-week-old fetal human was kept alive in an “artificial placenta” for five hours before dying. The American Association of Obstetrics and Gynecology even gave an award to the study.

“Also note that there are no residency requirements,” Smith adds. “Since almost every jurisdiction in the world places restrictions on late terminations, Vermont could well become the viable-fetus abortion capital of the world.”

Pro-abortion activists are also pushing a state constitutional amendment affirming a “right” to abortion, which is currently pending before the state Senate.