ATLANTA — The anti-abortion movement’s tactic known
as a “personhood amendment,” which legally defines a person as existing
at the moment of fertilization, has been rejected twice in recent years
by voters in Colorado.
But the effort has found
new life in Mississippi, where a personhood amendment will appear on the
Nov. 8 ballot. Mississippi is, by some measures, the nation’s most
conservative state, and the proposal has earned the support of both the
Democratic and Republican candidates for governor, the majority of
attorney general candidates and a host of other state leaders.
If
Proposition 26 passes, abortion foes hope it will build momentum for a
broader national assault on Roe vs. Wade. Supporters say similar
propositions will be featured on ballots in Florida, South Dakota and
Ohio in 2012.
Both sides in the debate agree that
the measure would outlaw abortion, even in the cases of rape and incest.
But there is disagreement about what other, potentially wide-ranging
effects it may have.
“Part of the concern is that
it’s not entirely clear what will happen if this passes,” Mississippi
College law professor Jonathan Will told the Jackson Clarion-Ledger
recently.
The text of the measure proposes that
the definition of “person” in the state constitution include “every
human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional
equivalent thereof.”
Opponents fear that could ban
some fertility treatments and birth-control methods, including IUDs,
which prevent the implantation of fertilized eggs. In the
Clarion-Ledger, Will raised the possibility that the legal voting age
would actually be 17 years and 3 months after birth, and that population
figures might have to be calculated with the frozen embryos housed in
fertility clinics taken into account.
Michele
Alexandre, an associate law professor at the University of Mississippi,
is among those who worry that if Proposition 26 passes, women unaware of
their early pregnancy might be exposed to prosecution if they are found
to have consumed alcohol or engaged in “a strenuous physical
competition.”
The Yes on 26 supporters argue that
the amendment would not ban “most forms” of birth-control pills, though
they say it would ban the pregnancy-terminating treatment known as
RU486. They deny it would prohibit in vitro fertilization, though it
“would not allow unused embryos to be destroyed.”
They also dismiss as “silly and cruel” the suggestion that the law would result in criminal prosecutions of women who miscarry.
Personhood
USA, which spearheaded the Colorado ballot measures, is heading up the
Mississippi effort. The liberal investigative magazine Mother Jones
notes that another major player this time around is a man named Les
Riley, founder of the group Personhood Mississippi. Riley, the magazine
reported, is a neo-secessionist who “once supported an effort to form an
independent theocratic republic in South Carolina.”
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©2011 the Los Angeles Times
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