'Personhood' effort still alive after Miss. defeat

[November 09, 2011]  JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- Abortion opponents say they're still pursuing life-at-fertilization ballot initiatives in six other states after Bible Belt voters in Mississippi defeated one Tuesday.

The "personhood" proposal was intended to prompt a legal challenge aimed at overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established a legal right to abortion.

Keith Mason is co-founder of Personhood USA, which pushed the Mississippi measure. The Colorado-based group is trying to put initiatives on 2012 ballots in Florida, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Nevada and California. Voters in Colorado rejected similar proposals in 2008 and 2010.

Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said the initiatives represent an "extreme, dangerous and direct assault" on abortion rights.

Mason told The Associated Press that Personhood USA might revive efforts for another ballot initiative in Mississippi.

Speaking of the failure in Mississippi on Tuesday, Mason said, "it's not because the people are not pro-life. It's because Planned Parenthood put a lot of misconceptions and lies in front of folks and created a lot of confusion."

Planned Parenthood Federation of America said in a statement: "Mississippi voters rejected the so-called `personhood' amendment because they understood it is government gone too far, and would have allowed 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 so-called "personhood" initiative was rejected by more than 55 percent of Mississippi voters, falling far short of the threshold needed for it to be enacted.

The measure divided the medical and religious communities and caused some of the most ardent abortion opponents, including Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, to waver with their support.

Opponents said the measure would have made birth control, such as the morning-after pill or the intrauterine device, illegal. More specifically, the ballot measure called for abortion to be prohibited "from the moment of fertilization" -- wording that opponents suggested would have deterred physicians from performing in vitro fertilization because they would fear criminal charges if an embryo doesn't survive.

Opponents also said supporters were trying to impose their religious beliefs on others by forcing women to carry unwanted pregnancies, including those caused by rape or incest.

Amy Brunson voted against the measure, in part because she has been raped. She also has friends and family that had children through in vitro fertilization and she was worried this would end that process.

"The lines are so unclear on what may or may not happen. I think there are circumstances beyond everybody's control that can't be regulated through an amendment," said Brunson, a 36-year-old dog trainer and theater production assistant from Jackson.

Buddy Hairston, 39, took his 8-year-old triplets to a precinct outside Jackson to hold signs supporting the initiative.

"Unborn children are being killed on a daily basis in our state and country, and it's urgent that we protect them," said Hairston, a forestry consultant.

Mississippi already has tough abortion regulations and only one clinic where the procedures are performed, making it a fitting venue for a national movement to get abortion bans into state constitutions.

The state's largest Christian denomination, the Mississippi Baptist Convention, backed the proposal through its lobbying arm, the Christian Action Commission.

"We mourn with heaven tonight over the loss of Initiative 26, which would have provided the hope of life for thousands of God's unborn babies in Mississippi," said the commission's director, the Rev. Jimmy Porter. "Instead the unborn in Mississippi will continue to be led down on a path of destruction to horrible deaths both inside their mothers and in laboratories."

The bishops of the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi and the General Conference of the United Methodist Church opposed the initiative.

Bishop Joseph Latino of the Catholic Diocese of Jackson, a church traditionally against abortion, issued a statement neither supporting nor opposing the initiative. The Mississippi State Medical Association took a similar step, while other medical groups opposed it.

[Associated Press; By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS]

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.