The North Dakota House of Representatives has passed the first personhood amendment in the United States, 57-35. Read more
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Loss steels resolve in ‘personhood’ movement
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/4/loss-steels-resolve-in-pe…
Anti-abortion activists ‘ready to press forward’
By Cheryl Wetzstein
The Washington Times
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Story Topics
Social Issues Jennifer Mason Les Riley Personhood Usa Personhood MississippiThe Nov. 8 defeat of the “personhood” amendment in Mississippi is galvanizing supporters to have a do-over in the state and also push measures in Colorado, Virginia and at least eight other states, say leaders of the anti-abortion movement.
“I can tell you that we are going to press forward. … We’ve got plans to continue a massive grass-roots campaign,” as well as work with the legislature, said Les Riley, leader of Personhood Mississippi.
“We realize we are changing a culture, and we can’t expect to change the culture with one election. That’s why we are willing to do this as many times as it takes,” said Jennifer Mason, spokeswoman for Personhood USA, which supports coast-to-coast measures seeking to establish human rights at conception.
Petition drives for personhood measures are taking shape or are under way in California, Colorado, Florida, Montana, Nevada, Ohio and Oregon. In addition, lawmakers in Wisconsin and Virginia have introduced personhood legislation, while lawmakers in Georgia have announced plans to do so.
Those amendments will likely face fierce opposition from pro-choice groups — and some pro-life groups.
“Right-wing extremists intend to put so-called ‘personhood’ amendments on as many state ballots as they can,” the National Organization for Women said in a recent year-end fundraising appeal to supporters.
“Enactment of the so-called ‘Personhood’ Amendment to the Wisconsin state constitution is a threat to the protection of Wisconsin unborn children,” Wisconsin Right to Life said after a group of lawmakers introduced a personhood bill last month.
To many pro-life leaders, however, personhood is the battleground of the 21st century.
Emerging issues such as cloning, embryo experimentation and euthanasia necessitate ensuring the right to life for human beings, “womb to tomb,” say personhood supporters such as Georgia Right to Life President Daniel Becker.
“The pro-life movement must mature beyond the singular goal of ‘saving babies’ and engage our current ‘culture of death,’ ” Mr. Becker wrote in his book on personhood this year. “Personhood is the means.”
The stunning defeat of Mississippi’s Amendment 26 — 58 percent of voters rejected it although it was expected to pass handily in the strongly pro-life state — revealed numerous campaign weaknesses.
Personhood Mississippi polled about 10,000 people after the vote, Mr. Riley said. Surprisingly, the biggest reason people voted “no” on personhood was fear that it would prevent infertile couples from using in-vitro fertilization (IVF) to have a baby. Another big fear was that a personhood amendment would prevent pregnant women from getting lifesaving medical treatment.
Those and other fears were advanced by media campaigns, billboards and materials distributed by opponents of Amendment 26 — Mississippians for Healthy Families collected more than $1 million, mostly from Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its chapters, to defeat the amendment.
After the vote, though, a lot of people felt they were deceived, Mr. Riley said. Many have called to say they regret voting no and say, “I want to help you next time,”he said.
The Colorado amendment for 2012 reflects some lessons learned: It clarifies that “only birth control that kills a person” and “only in-vitro fertilization and assisted reproduction that kills a person” would be affected by the amendment and that it does not prevent medical treatment for life-threatening conditions such as cancer, ectopic pregnancies and placenta previa.
“We think that by including a little more information to prohibit our opposition from using these scare tactics will benefit us, while easing voters’ minds,” said Mrs. Mason, who is married to Personhood USA President Keith Mason.
The Colorado amendment’s new language “is an obvious effort to address some of the weaknesses in past proposals and be more clear about what the intent is,” said Clarke Forsythe, senior counsel at Americans United for Life, which, he said, takes a “state-by-state” approach on whether to support personhood amendments.
But such detail surely will open the Colorado personhood campaign to political debates on each of those points, he said. “It won’t be just an abortion issue; it will be an IVF issue. … You will have a campaign on every subsection of it.”
Mrs. Mason is undeterred, saying she thinks young Americans are ready to push forward with personhood.
“I feel like my [baby boomer] parents’ generation had time to change Roe v. Wade and fight against it, and nothing happened,” she said. “Believe me, we have the most volunteers of any pro-life group in the country. And most of these volunteers are young people who want to see a change.”
Backers of Personhood Amendment Try Again - Middle East North Africa Financial News
http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story.asp?storyid={d3de57b3-d17f-48b0-8b8f-3639827392ed}
Abortion foes to try again to pass personhood amendment in Colorado
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19380916?source=rss
A Denver-based anti-abortion group that sponsored an unsuccessful personhood amendment in Mississippi — declaring fertilization the starting point of life — is mobilizing again to push a fortified measure in Colorado, Oregon and Montana.
The group will hold a news conference today on the west steps of the state Capitol to unveil the renewed effort. Personhood amendments have failed twice in Colorado, but organizers think the third time will be different.
They’ll announce official sponsors and unveil exact language for submission to the secretary of state.
They would need about 79,000 valid petition signatures to win a spot on Colorado’s 2012 ballot.
Organizers said Saturday they are banking on broad grassroots support, with volunteers circulating petitions at grocery stores, and a new game plan.
The new version of the measure “will protect every child, no matter their size, level of development, gender, age or race,” said Jennifer Mason, spokeswoman for Personhood USA.
New language “will explain again that every human being is a person from their earliest moments,” Mason said. “And it will include some extra information that hopefully will prohibit lies of our opponents. . . . It will be a departure from what we’ve done before.”
Personhood USA pushed Colorado’s Amendment 62 in 2010 seeking constitutional rights for individuals “at the beginning of biological development.”
Colorado voters rejected it by a 3-to-1 margin — just as they rejected a nearly identical measure in 2008.
This year, Personhood USA turned to the Bible Belt, pushing a measure in Mississippi, but 55 percent of voters rejected it.
If voters were to pass a measure saying life begins at fertilization, legal challenges would be likely because such a measure would conflict with the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling that established a legal right to abortion.
In Colorado, a “No on 62” campaign led by Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains and abortion-rights groups prevailed after raising more than $570,000 — nearly 10 times the cash that abortion foes received.
Abortion-rights advocates in Colorado harnessed lawyers, medical experts and women who had suffered rape and miscarriage. They used public forums to cast the measure as misguided, arguing that, beyond ending abortion, declaring fertilization as the starting point for life would lead to a prohibition of emergency contraception in rape cases and limit treatment for miscarriages, tubal pregnancies and infertility.
Now, anti-abortion groups in Colorado, Oregon and Montana will try to sway voters again, Mason said.
Bruce Finley: 303-954-1700 or [email protected]
Colorado abortion foes to try 'personhood' measures again - Boulder Daily Camera
DENVER — An anti-abortion group that sponsored an unsuccessful constitutional amendment in Mississippi said Monday it will try again next year in Colorado, Montana and Oregon.
Denver-based Personhood USA has campaigned for state constitutional amendments defining life as beginning at fertilization. The amendments sought to ban abortion. Many physicians have said they could make some birth control illegal and deter in vitro fertilization.
Personhood amendments have failed twice in Colorado, and Mississippi voters rejected an amendment this year.
A new version of the measure “will protect every child, no matter their size, level of development, gender, age or race,” Jennifer Mason, spokeswoman for Personhood USA, told The Denver Post.
Personhood USA said it would submit its proposed ballot language to the Colorado secretary of state’s office for approval before collecting signatures to place it on the ballot.
Organizers said they will have volunteers circulate petitions at grocery stores.
Any successful measure would likely trigger legal challenges because it would conflict with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling that established a legal right to abortion.
In Mississippi, which has some of the nation’s toughest abortion regulations, voters rejected a proposed state constitutional amendment 58 percent to 42 percent on Nov. 8. Republican Gov. Haley Barbour said he thought proponents erred by putting the amendment on the ballot instead of going through the Legislature.
“If it had gone to the Legislature, the wrinkles in it would have been worked out,” Barbour said after the vote.
“Instead, these were some people from Colorado who had an initiative they tried twice to pass in Colorado and they couldn’t,” Barbour said. “And they thought, ‘What’s the most pro-life state in the country?’ Well it’s Mississippi. So they came to Mississippi with a half-baked initiative.”
In 2008 and 2010, Colorado voters overwhelmingly rejected anti-abortion proposals that would have granted constitutional rights at the moment of conception under the state constitution. Opponents warned the amendments would ban fertility treatments and emergency contraception if they harmed fertilized eggs. Backers argued 21st century DNA experiments make it imperative to give fetuses human rights.
Abortion rights advocates raised nearly 10 times the cash that abortion foes did to defeat the 2010 effort.
http://www.dailycamera.com/state-west-news/ci_19383814?source=most_viewed
CO Right to Life Leader Vows 2012 Personhood Effort, Despite MS Loss
http://www.coloradopols.com/diary/16738/on-radio-co-right-to-life-leader…
On Kevin Swanson’s “Generations Radio” show, broadcast Nov. 11 from his basement in eastern Colorado, Colorado Right to Life Vice President Leslie Hanks vowed to press ahead next year with a third try at passing a Personhood Amendment in Colorado.
Hanks sounded mildly disappointed with Mississippi’s rejection Tues. of a Personhood measure by a 58-to-42-percent margin, but she told Swanson that the Personhood movement is “moving in the right direction,” gaining 27% in CO in 2008, 30% 2010, and 42% in Mississippi this week.
Jason Salzman :: CO Right to Life Leader Vows 2012 Personhood Effort, Despite MS Loss
Hanks invited Swanson’s listeners to a “March for Life” Jan. 21 at noon on the west steps of the CO Capitol, where the third attempt to pass a Personhood Amendment in Colorado will be officially launched and petitions for gathering signatures to put the measure on the ballot will be available. Mike Adams of conservative Townhall.com and others will speak, Hanks to Swanson, at the “Round Three Personhood Colorado” event.
She told Swanson that Personhood activists in Florida are gathering signitures now, as are supporters in Ohio and Montana. Coloradoans were the first in the country to vote on a Personhood amendment in 2008.
“We won’t quit until justice has been served for all those innocent children who have been killed,” Hanks told Swanson.
“This is the kind of thing that bothers the other side,” Swanson concluded at the end of his broadcast. “They realize, we’re not giving up. And that really irritates them. And I’ll tell ya, to be honest, I kind of enjoy that.”
Swanson, who’s Nov. 11 broadcast was titled “Making Progress on Personhood,” is a pastor, who tells his listeners that his radio show “is trying to put some things back together during the decline of western civilization, the breakdown of faith, family, and freedom, the breakdown of morality, and of course the massive, massive increase in the state, that is statism, tyranny, government tyranny.”
Abortion Foes To Try ‘Personhood’ Measures Again - CBS
http://denver.cbslocal.com/2011/11/21/abortion-foes-to-try-personhood-me…
(credit: personhoodusa.com)
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Oregon, U.S. Supreme Court, Personhood, DNA, Montana, Mississippi, Anti-Abortion, Personhood USA, Jennifer Mason, Roe vs. Wade, Haley Barbour
DENVER (AP) – An anti-abortion group that sponsored an unsuccessful constitutional amendment in Mississippi said Monday it will try again with a revised version next year in Colorado, Montana and Oregon.
Denver-based Personhood USA has campaigned for state constitutional amendments defining life as beginning at fertilization. While the amendments sought to ban abortion, many physicians said they could make some birth control illegal and deter in vitro fertilization.
Those personhood amendments failed twice in Colorado, and Mississippi voters rejected an amendment this year.
On Monday, Personhood USA proposed adding a new section that states “the intentional killing of any innocent person is prohibited” and that the right to life “applies equally to all innocent persons.”
Only birth control, in vitro fertilization and assisted reproduction “that kills a person” would be affected by the amendment.
The term “person” would apply to “every human being regardless of the method of creation.” A human being is “a member of the species homo sapiens at any stage of development,” it states.
While spontaneous miscarriages and medical treatment for life-threatening physical conditions would not be affected, no exception would be made for abortions in cases of rape or incest.
The proposed measure seeks to better explain to voters what would and would not be affected, said Jennifer Mason, spokeswoman for Personhood USA.
“We’ve seen the opposition use scare tactics to convince people to vote `No,”‘ Mason said. “We cannot ban in vitro fertilization. So we explain this would affect only those practices that kill human embryos.”
Personhood USA said it would submit its proposed language to the Colorado secretary of state’s office for approval before collecting signatures to place it on the ballot.
Mason said Personhood USA planned to submit amendments in Montana and Oregon “at the request of citizens in both states.” She did not elaborate other than to say the Denver group was supporting local activists.
Any successful measure would likely trigger legal challenges because it would conflict with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that established a legal right to abortion.
In Mississippi, which has some of the nation’s toughest abortion regulations, voters rejected a proposed state constitutional amendment 58 percent to 42 percent on Nov. 8. Republican Gov. Haley Barbour said he thought proponents erred by putting the amendment on the ballot instead of going through the Legislature.
“If it had gone to the Legislature, the wrinkles in it would have been worked out,” Barbour said after the vote.
“Instead, these were some people from Colorado who had an initiative they tried twice to pass in Colorado and they couldn’t,” Barbour said. “And they thought, `What’s the most pro-life state in the country?’ Well it’s Mississippi. So they came to Mississippi with a half-baked initiative.”
In 2008 and 2010, Colorado voters overwhelmingly rejected anti-abortion proposals that would have granted constitutional rights at the moment of conception under the state constitution. Opponents warned the amendments would ban fertility treatments and emergency contraception if they harmed fertilized eggs. Backers argued 21st century DNA experiments make it imperative to give fetuses human rights.
Abortion rights advocates raised nearly 10 times the cash that abortion foes did to defeat the 2010 effort. Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains issued a statement Monday saying it will fight any new measure in Colorado.
LINK: Text of Proposed Amendment
Will Colorado Politicians Who Backed Personhood 2010 Be Supportive Again - Big Media and Huff. Post
Backers of a Colorado personhood amendment, which would essentially give the same legal protections to a fertilized egg or “zygote” as you’ve got if you’re alive and reading this, announced Tuesday that they’ve launched their campaign to put a personhood measure on the ballot next year.
The question for reporters to dig into now is, will the same politicians who backed the personhood amendment last year jump on board again?
Here in Colorado, some of the highest-ranking GOP politicians in the state are personhood backers, even though the measure was shot down badly both in 2008 and again in 2010.
Last year, you recall, failed U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck un-endorsed the measure, after it became clear that it would not only ban almost all abortions, but also common birth-control methods, like IUDs and some forms of the Pill.
But other high-powered Colorado politicians who backed personhood last year didn’t take their endorsements back.
These include Congressmen Mike Coffman, Cory Gardner, and Scott Tipton, as well as numerous state legislators, all Republicans.
I attended Tuesday’s personhood news conference to make sure these issues were raised by reporters, and because they were not, I filled in the journalistic gap.
I asked Kristi Brown, who’s changed her name from Kristi Burton since she sponsored the first personhood amendment with her father in 2008, if she expected to get the same support from major candidates that her measure had gotten previously.
I mean, you can argue that without a Republican primary, GOP candidates like Scott Tipton and Cory Gardner might not endorse the 2012 measure, given its apparent unpopularity with voters, especially women.
And neither Coffman, Gardner, nor Tipton have sponsored legislation in Congress that would establish personhood as the law of the land, not just Colorado, so you have to wonder what’s going on with them.
“I haven’t personally talked to [Tipton and Gardner],” Brown told me.
“I know Cory Gardner is very conservative, has really good stands. I talked to him on the 2008 amendment. He was very, very supportive. He was one of our main supporters. So I would guess that he would.”
When she says a main supporter what does she mean?
“Very supportive,” she said. “He would come to events for us. He talked about it.”
Here’s Gardner at one personhood event.
I asked Gualberto Garcia Jones, who spoke at the news conference and wrote (with Brown) this year’s amendment, which has more expansive and precise language than last year’s, if he thought presidential candidate Mitt Romney would support his amendment this time, given that he’s changed his position over the years. Garcia Jones said Romney is known as a flip flopper and that his group would persevere regardless of the positions of Democratic or Republican politicians. (No major Democrats support the effort, as far as I know, but Michele Bachman, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich back personhood, and it’s endorsed in a plank of the national GOP platform.
Asked if he thought he’d get Tipton and Gardner on board for personhood this time, former gubernatorial candidate and “Generations Radio” host Kevin Swanson, said, “I think so,” adding that he hopes to get Democrats as well. (In his prepared remarks, Swanson repeated his view that said Dr. Seuss summed up the amendment best when he wrote, “A person’s a person no matter how small.”)
“I think it’s real possible we could get some strong Republican support,” but he said he hadn’t been in touch with Tipton or Gardner.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-salzman/will-colorado-politicians_b_…
New Colo. Personhood Amendment Features New, Improved Language - Christian Post
http://www.christianpost.com/news/new-colo-personhood-amendment-features…
Christian pro-life group Personhood USA is making plans for a 2012 personhood amendment in Colorado after learning from the mistakes of the failed Mississippi amendment.
On Monday, the leadership of Personhood USA and Personhood Colorado announced plans to pursue a Colorado Personhood Amendment. In light of the unsuccessful Mississippi measure, officials say they have a new language to encourage an upswing in the number of people who vote to protect pre-born life.
“In past elections Planned Parenthood, which is the largest and wealthiest abortion provider in the United States, attacked our amendments with lies and scare tactics,” Personhood USA Co-founder Keith Mason said during the Monday press conference. “The new personhood language prevents those falsehoods by making it absolutely clear what the amendment can and cannot do – while still protecting every child from his or her earliest stages.”
A previous personhood amendment that appeared on the 2010 ballot in Colorado simply tried to amend articles of the state constitution to define person to “apply to every human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being.”
Now the 2012 amendment will include two new definitions crafted by Personhood USA Legal Analyst Gualberto Garcia Jones to the original statement.
The word “person” is defined to mean “every human being regardless of the method of creation.” The person definition embraces babies conceived though in vitro fertilization. The term “human being” is defined as “a member of the species Homo Sapiens at any stage of development.”
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The amendment also has clauses clarifying how it would be implemented.
Jones told The Christian Post one of the clauses clarifies that the amendment does not ban birth control. “It will only affect birth control that kills a person,” he said. That means the pill will be allowed while RU486, nicknamed the abortion pill, would be banned.
Additionally, another clause makes it clear that the ban will not punish mischarges that occur due to life-saving treatments such as chemotherapy or surgeries removing a cancerous uterus.
“It’s not that we changed our position,” said Jones. “We’re just putting it in the language.”
Personhood USA and Personhood Colorado hope the new language will sway Christian groups which have been hesitant to support the bill in the past.
The Mississippi personhood Amendment 26 failed with 45 percent of voters supporting the provision and 55 percent opposing.
Though the amendment seemed to serve the interests of pro-lifers who oppose abortion as murder of the pre-born, the state amendment seemed to divide factions of the movement. The Mississippi Baptist Convention supported the proposed amendment while the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi and the United Methodist Church General Conference opposed the measure.
The Catholic Diocese of Jackson chose not to take a position on the amendment. However, the Montana Catholic Conference chose not to support the amendment.
“We believe the strategy to pass a state constitutional amendment declaring personhood is problematic, in part, because of its heavy reliance on unpredictable courts and dependence on future legislative actions to define and implement the law,” the conference said in a statement.
Gov. Haley Barbour told Fox News, “Some very strongly pro-life people have raised questions about the ambiguity and about the actual consequences of whether there are unforeseen, unintended consequences.”
Jones responded, saying, “The reason that a lot of Christians were not clear or were confused by the languages [was] because the opposition did that.”
Planned Parenthood Federation of America said in a statement that the personhood initiative “would have allowed the government to have control over personal decisions that should be left up to a woman, her family, her doctor and her faith, including keeping a woman with a life-threatening pregnancy from getting the care she needs, and criminalizing everything from abortion to common forms of birth control such as the pill and the IUD (the intrauterine device).”
Despite efforts to clarify the true bill’s effects, it failed.
Now Personhood USA officials are confident the new amendment will be well received and passed by pro-life advocates.
The new Personhood Amendment language was submitted to the secretary of state’s office Monday afternoon. Sponsors are now awaiting state approval before beginning the petition process.
http://www.christianpost.com/news/new-colo-personhood-amendment-features…
Personhood USA again pushes for right-to-life amendment to Colorado Constitution - Denver Post
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19387552
Denver-based Personhood USA filed new language Monday for a proposed right-to-life constitutional amendment to end abortions in Colorado.
Supporters of the 2012 ballot question say revised language will make this third attempt clearer to voters, but opponents say the electorate roundly rejected similar measures in 2008 and 2010 and will do so again.
If the secretary of state approves the language, proponents will need to collect about 79,000 valid voter signatures to get on the ballot again.
The 2012 Personhood Amendment would add a new section to the state constitution to “affirm basic human dignity” and guarantee that the right to life “applies equally to all innocent persons” and “the intentional killing of any innocent person is prohibited.”
“Our language is very clear this time,” said Kristi Burton Brown, amendment co-author and Personhood Colorado founder. “No one can doubt our intentions or the effects this time.”
The 2012 language states that only birth control, in-vitro fertilization and assisted reproduction “that kill a person” shall be affected by this amendment.
The term “person,” the proposed amendment states, applies to “every human being regardless of the method of creation” and a human being is “a member of the species homo sapiens at any stage of development.”
Spontaneous miscarriages and medical treatment for life-threatening physical conditions intended to preserve life would not be affected by the amendment, the much-longer 2012 measure reads.
Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains said it will again work with its more than 90 coalition partners to educate Colorado voters about this initiative aimed at banning abortions in all circumstances.
“No innocent child created through rape or incest shall be killed for the crime of his or her father,” the proposed amendment states.
Colorado Democratic Party chairman Rick Palacio called the measure an attempt by Republicans to push “an extreme social agenda that Colorado voters have consistently and overwhelmingly rejected. Twice already, Coloradans have considered a so-called personhood amendment to the state constitution, and after learning about the dire consequences for women’s health, voters have said no by nearly 3-to-1 margins.”
Personhood USA legal analyst and amendment co-author Gualberto Garcia Jones said the group appreciates the support of any Republican leaders but is independent and nonpartisan.
Personhood USA is behind similar ballot measures in Oregon and Montana.
Official sponsors of the Colorado measure are Rosalinda Lozano, described as a committed Catholic who is working to open a women’s medical center, and Kevin Swanson, host of the daily show “Generations Radio” and executive director of Christian Home Educators of Colorado.
Electa Draper: 303-954-1276 or [email protected]
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