Anti-abortion extremists are targeting states with ballot initiatives for November. A South Dakota initiative banning abortion garnered enough signatures to be placed on the state’s November ballot. The measure has only a few minor modifications from the abortion ban pro-choice activists defeated in 2006.
Anti-abortion groups are also pushing so-called “personhood initiatives” in several states. These measures declare that a fertilized egg is a “person” who enjoys “inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of the law.” They would threaten not only abortion itself, but IUDs, emergency contraception, in vitro fertilization clinics, and stem cell research. The measures failed in Georgia and Oregon. Signatures have been submitted for the Secretary of State to validate in Colorado, and petition drives are still underway in Montana and Mississippi.
A parental notification initiative, which California voters rejected in 2006, will again be on the ballot in November. In Missouri, both anti-abortion ballot initiatives failed to gather signatures to qualify for the November ballot, according to NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri release. In essence both initiatives were abandoned.
