Eagle Forum Blasts "Personhood" Initiatives

Despite the fact that the effort to pass a "personhood amendment" last year in Colorado was an absolute failure, proponents have continued to press ahead with similar efforts all over the country. 

According to Personhood.net, there are there are efforts underway to "outlaw all abortions and certain types of birth control, including oral contraceptives and the morning-after pill" in various states, including Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, South Carolina, and Virginia.

One of the problems plaguing the effort has been the opposition of most Religious Right and anti-choice groups ... a problem that obviously continues to this day, as earlier this week the Eagle Forum announced its opposition, calling the efforts misleading, hurtful to the anti-choice effort, and basically a scam:

The "personhood" initiative lost by a landslide of 73% to 27% in Colorado in 2008, and its unpopular coattails hurt good pro-life candidates there. This poorly designed initiative would not prevent a single abortion even it if became law, and its vague language would enable more mischief by judges.

Now its organizers, who provide little information about themselves or their funding, spread their disaster to key swing states like Florida, Missouri, Nevada and Montana. This hurtful effort misleads pro-lifers with the false hope that a referendum can overturn Roe v. Wade, when only the U.S. Supreme Court can do that. This enriches pro-abortion groups with a fundraising issue as they claim to preserve abortion by suing to stop this initiative, and they have already filed several lawsuits.

Florida's Catholic Bishops recently banned the collection of any signatures for this ill-advised initiative at churches there, and most pro-life groups also oppose this initiative. We encourage support of pro-life candidates, and oppose hurtful gimmicks like the personhood initiative.