After Mississippi defeat, what about ‘personhood’?
The failure of the "personhood" initiative in Mississippi in November
intensified what appears to be a growing divide in the antiabortion
movement.
Some backers of the initiative, which aimed to make
abortion illegal by defining a fetus as a person from the moment of
conception, are pointing fingers at major antiabortion groups that stood
on the sidelines during the Mississippi debate.
"What you have is
a few organizations that are moving in the wrong direction on the issue
of life," said Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, a leading
conservative law firm that provided advice to the initiative's sponsors.
Staver
said he blames Americans United for Life (AUL) and the National Right
to Life Committee (NRLC)—two of the largest and most established
antiabortion groups—for an "impasse" in the movement that contributed
to a loss at the polls.
"The split is not good," Staver said of
the divide between more-established groups and the more-confrontational
groups that backed the Personhood initiative. "They want to be too
conservative, too cautious. We need to move forward with a direct
challenge to Roe [v. Wade]."
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Also sitting out the debate: the Roman Catholic Church, a giant in the antiabortion movement.
More
than 55 percent of Mississippi voters on November 8 rejected the
initiative, which would have declared that life begins at fertilization.
Many saw the case as the first volley in a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.
Personhood
USA, which twice tried and failed to pass a similar ballot measure in
Colorado, attracted support for the Mississippi measure from several
prominent groups that oppose abortion rights, including the Family
Research Council and the American Family Association.
It blamed
the abortion rights group Planned Parenthood, which campaigned against
the initiative, for its defeat. Opponents, including some religious
groups, argued that the initiative was unconstitutional and poorly
constructed and would have made several forms of birth control and in
vitro fertilization techniques illegal.
After the recent defeat,
the AUL defended its decision to stay on the sidelines. AUL spokeswoman
Kristi Hamrick said the measure, even if it had passed, was not in
direct conflict with Roe v. Wade and wouldn't have led to its overthrow.
Asked
about Staver's charge that the AUL is too cautious, she said: "Pro-life
organizations who agree on the need to build toward test cases that can
overturn Roe v. Wade may not all agree on the best course of action, but friends can engage in separate strategies. It's not one-size-fits-all."
The
NRLC issued a statement focusing on state legislative wins in 2011 that
restricted access to abortion. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
referred questions on the initiative to its dioceses in Mississippi.
At
the Catholic Diocese of Biloxi, spokeswoman Shirley Henderson said
several people have called to express concern that the church had not
thrown its weight behind the initiative. "I know most of the Catholics
in our diocese were disappointed that it did not pass," she said.
"Supposedly, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is hoping to
reverse Roe v. Wade on the national level."
Jennifer Mason,
spokeswoman for Personhood USA, said the group is now focused on
getting similar measures on the ballot in several other states: Montana,
Ohio, Florida, Nevada and California. "Next time we will have even more
friends," Mason said. —RNS
