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Personhood, Heartbeat Bills Emerge in Nebraska, Kansas

Submitted by Brian Tashman on December 28, 2011 - 12:55pm

A member of Nebraska’s unicameral legislature is introducing two of the most radical anti-choice bills in the country, a personhood measure to give legal status to zygotes and a ‘heartbeat law’ that would also effectively ban abortion. Like in Ohio, more established anti-choice groups are wary of passing such clearly unconstitutional laws and are instead encouraging the legislature to defund Planned Parenthood. The Omaha World Herald reports that State Sen. Mark Christensen is proposing both measures, and that the “heartbeat bill is expected to be introduced in the Kansas Legislature next month”:

At least one Nebraska lawmaker is looking at proposals for the new legislative session that would drastically limit legal abortion in the state.

One measure would declare that life — and legal status — begins at fertilization. The other would ban abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which is usually six to eight weeks into pregnancy.

"I'm more than willing to introduce them," said State Sen. Mark Christensen of Imperial. "I'm willing to take on a fight."

The Heartbeat bill, crafted by Religious Right activist Janet Porter, has yet to face a vote in the Ohio State Senate because supporters amended the bill to make the bill even more onerous:

The proposed changes include the deletion of the word “viability” from a section of the bill. That would mean the heartbeat is the only indicator needed to prevent an abortion, not whether the fetus would survive outside the womb.

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That change seems to run counter to testimony from obstetricians opposed to the bill who said in some births a fetus has been detected to have little if any chance of surviving once born. Other proposed changes:

• Add language that the state has a legitimate interest “from the outset of the pregnancy” in protecting the health of a woman and “the life of the fetus that may become a child.” Forte said the principle comes from a U.S. Supreme Court decision. However, the language possibly could be read to mean the state’s interest starts at conception.

• Clarifies that for a woman to make “an informed choice about whether to continue her pregnancy, the pregnant woman has a legitimate interest in knowing the likelihood of the fetus surviving to full term birth based upon the presence of cardiac activity.”

• Requires the presence or absence of a fetal heartbeat be recorded in a pregnant woman’s medical record, along with the methods used to test for a heartbeat, the date and time of the test, and the results.

Meanwhile, trouble in the legislature for the Heartbeat bill hasn’t slowed down efforts by Personhood Ohio to put the anti-choice law on the ballot in 2012:

Campaign officials have submitted the first round of signatures to Attorney General Mike DeWine, who has said he will certify it. "By law, he has to certify it within a couple of weeks," reports Dr. Michael Johnston, who is heading up the campaign. "So by the beginning of 2012, we'll be ready for our statewide campaign to gather the 380,000 signatures necessary to put the Ohio personhood amendment on the ballot."

If passed, the amendment would end abortion in the state.

"We are prayerfully doing what Ohio state law allows to defy judicial tyranny and to protect every unborn child in the state of Ohio," Johnston says.

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Anti-Choice Groups Intensify Efforts to Restrict Reproductive Rights in States

Submitted by Brian Tashman on December 28, 2010 - 3:55pm

Energized by gains made by Republicans not only in congressional elections but also in gubernatorial and legislative races, anti-choice organizations are gearing up plans to push new laws restricting women’s right to choose. Already, anti-choice groups hope for more states to replicate Oklahoma’s new law, which compels women seeking to terminate their pregnancies to watch an ultrasound monitor and have a doctor read a state-specified script about the fetus. Slate’s Emily Bazelon writes that Oklahoma’s law stands “at the top of the heap of paternalism that Justice Anthony Kennedy started climbing two years ago, in his opinion in Gonzales v. Carhart,” which upheld the federal ban on late-term abortion. Kennedy “injected into that case the constitutionally novel idea that because some women come to regret their abortions, the court could substitute its judgment for their doctors’ by sparing them from a procedure that women would reject as too gruesome if they only knew the details.”

Now, anti-choice groups hope to use the 2007 decision in Gonzales v. Carhart to advance more restrictive laws across the country. Robert Barnes of the Washington Post reports that anti-choice legislators in Nebraska, led by Speaker Mike Flood, used “that decision as a road map” to ban abortion after 20 weeks without health exceptions. “The importance of Flood's bill is likely to be felt far beyond Nebraska,” writes Barnes, as “abortion opponents call it model legislation for other states and say it could provide a direct challenge to Supreme Court precedents that restrict government’s ability to prohibit abortion before a fetus can survive outside the womb.” Barnes writes:

The importance of Flood's bill is likely to be felt far beyond Nebraska. Abortion opponents call it model legislation for other states and say it could provide a direct challenge to Supreme Court precedents that restrict government’s ability to prohibit abortion before a fetus can survive outside the womb.

…

“Many in the pro-life movement have become very pragmatic when it comes to the court: “Can you count to five?’” said Mary Spaulding Balch, director of state legislation for the National Right to Life Committee. “With the Gonzales decision, we were happy to see that we could.”

The justices have not revisited the issue of abortion since, but the decision has emboldened state legislators to pass an increasing number and variety of restrictions in hopes that a changed court will uphold them.

“I believe the decision was like planting a bunch of seeds, and we're just starting to see the shoots popping out of the ground,” said Roger Evans, who is in charge of litigation for Planned Parenthood of America.

The Center for Reproductive Rights concluded that in 2010, state legislatures “considered and enacted some of the most extreme restrictions on abortion in recent memory, as well as passing laws creating dozens of other significant new hurdles.”

…

“We can't say with any certainty that this is going to meet constitutional muster,” said Nebraska Right to Life Executive Director Julie Schmit-Albin. “But you know what, from our perspective, if we aren't bucking up against Roe, we're not doing our job.”

Already, legislators in Iowa, Kentucky, and Indiana are marshalling support for legislation which imitates Nebraska’s restrictive new law, and “abortion opponents are pushing lawmakers in Kansas, Maryland and Oklahoma to do the same.”

In Alaska, anti-choice groups also pressured the governor to resist a judge’s decision that significantly weakened a parental notification law. A federal judge recently threw out parts of a parental notification law that was approved by voters on the same day of the contentious Miller/Murkowski Republican primary in August. According to the Associated Press, the judge “removed provisions calling for a fine of up to $1,000 and imprisonment of up to five years for people who knowingly violate the law” and also made notification easier to obtain and “ struck a section allowing physicians to be liable for damages.”

Jim Minnery of the far-right Alaska Family Council condemned the decision, saying, “We totally opposed his decision to neuter or take the teeth from the law by eliminating all the legal civil penalties for violating the law.” Now, Alaska Governor Sean Parnell filed a motion to reconsider in order to defend a law he claims “reflects the will of the people.”

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Connerly Announces Anti-Affirmative Action Campaigns in as Many as Nine States

Submitted by Anonymous on December 13, 2006 - 5:07pm

Ward Connerly – who ten years ago spearheaded California’s successful ballot initiative to end affirmative action in education, two years later worked to end it in Washington state, and this year joined the effort in Michigan, where a ban on affirmative action also passed – announced today that he is exploring nine more states: Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Utah. “Three down and 20 to go,” he said in a conference call this morning, referring to the number of states that have ballot initiative procedures.

Connerly was joined by Jennifer Gratz, a white student who sued the University of Michigan after being rejected for admission and who later led the ballot initiative to ban affirmative action outright. Gratz will join Connerly’s American Civil Rights Institute to work on the expansion of these bans. “We've always felt that if we could win in Michigan, we could win anywhere,” she said.

Despite the name of Connerly’s group, efforts like the Michigan ban have been opposed by major civil rights organizations. Connerly did pick up support from one major group: “If the Ku Klux Klan thinks equality is right, God bless them,” he said.

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Anti-Immigrant Group Rallies in Council Bluffs, Iowa

Submitted by Anonymous on September 15, 2006 - 4:44pm

“United Citizens of America” wants to recruit new members. Group web site: “Do what's necessary. Do it NOW, and your grateful grandchildren will recount the tale...in English.”

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