Last year, Mississippi voters rejected Initiative 26. Called the personhood amendment, it would have defined a person as “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.” If passed, the bill would have made things like birth control and abortion illegal.
Well, now the "personhood" debate is coming to Oklahoma thanks to certified wacko and Republican leader Mike Reynolds.
From NewsOK:
A ballot measure that would criminalize abortion by granting “personhood” status to a human embryo is one of nearly a dozen proposals that Oklahoma lawmakers want to send to voters in November.
The personhood amendment is similar to a proposal that was rejected by Mississippi voters last year, but the author of the Oklahoma proposal, Rep. Mike Reynolds, said Monday that he's modified the language to specify that the measure does not apply to miscarriages or to cases where the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother.
“I am absolutely for saving every unborn child,” said Reynolds, R-Oklahoma City. “I think without question it would limit the number of abortions.”...
If approved by the Legislature, Reynolds' bill would place a question on the November ballot asking voters to “expand the class of human beings that currently enjoy the inherent right to life under the Oklahoma Constitution to include every human being.”
While the measure would not apply to miscarriages or medical treatments to save the life of a mother, it would ban birth control methods or in vitro fertilization that “kills a person.” The measure also states there would be no exceptions for pregnancies that occur as a result of rape or incest, a provision that Martha Skeeters, the head of the Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice, finds troubling.
“I think most people in Oklahoma would be horrified by the idea that a state legislator is trying to force women made pregnant by rape to carry their rapist's child,” Skeeters said. “Women live their lives knowing what their own circumstances are, knowing what their own values are, and are perfectly capable of making their own moral decisions. They don't need the government making those decisions for them.”
Even if Reynolds' bill is unsuccessful, an effort already is underway to launch a signature drive to place the initiative on the ballot.
Dan Skerbitz, a Tulsa accountant and director of Personhood Oklahoma, said he plans to file notice this week with the Secretary of State's Office of his intent to gather signatures. Skerbitz said he expects the 90-day signature drive to take place from March to May, and that the language in his proposal would be similar to the initiative in Mississippi.
“The goal would be to basically protect the unborn, which would mean the intentional killing of the unborn without due process would be a crime,” Skerbitz said...
I'll be honest with you, I'm kind of excited about this. I've always wondered if Oklahomans are crazier than Mississippians, and now we'll finally get the chance to know for sure. Mississippi voters rejected the measure by a 59% vote. If Oklahoma voters reject it by a lesser margin (or God forbid approve it), we are crazier. If not, Mississippians are the crazy ones. Or maybe we're all crazy, who knows.
Also, I like how the difference between the Mississippi initiative and the "toned-down" Oklahoma version is that we're apparently okay with miscarriages. How civilized of us! Sure, under the new law it will be a crime to use birth control or to get an abortion if you are raped and impregnated by your uncle, but we're okay with miscarriages. I'm sure nothing can go wrong there. It will be interesting to see what happens when the first woman suffers a miscarriage after "accidentally" falling down a flight of stairs in Loud City at a Thunder game.
Anyway, in a normal state this proposed law would never make it out of a committee, but we're in Oklahoma. Our lawmakers are crazier than a person enjoying a steak at Western Sizzlin'. I'm surprised they haven't passed a law yet that makes it illegal to even think about abortion or something that declares the baby-delivering stork the new state bird of Oklahoma. Crap, I may have just given the wackos at the capital another idea. I apologize.
p.s. - Couldn't really think of any proper photo to include with this post, so I just went with the new PETA ad featuring PC North graduate Olivia Munn. You're welcome.
