The Ohio Ballot Board approved the language purposed by anti-abortion rights groups for a personhood amendment, which proposes to give constitutional rights to a fertilized egg. The petitioners must now collect 385,245 signatures from 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties in order for the initiative to appear on the state’s November ballot. If the personhood initiative appears on the ballot, emergency contraception, birth control pills, IUDs, and abortions – even in cases of rape and incest or to save the life of the woman or girl – would be threatened. The initiative would even go so far as to eliminate medical choices for women, including some cancer treatments, in vitro fertilization, and could allow the state to investigate and even prosecute a woman for a miscarriage. In November, Mississippi voters defeated the Personhood Amendment by a vote of 58% to 42% with 96 percent of precincts reporting. Anti-abortion and anti-birth control extremists have indicated that they intend to put a similar measure on five state ballots in 2012.
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