The Liberty Counsel appealed the case to the Supreme Court on behalf of Personhood Oklahoma after the Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down the proposed ballot initiative earlier this year.
The ballot initiative sought to amend the Oklahoma Constitution by granting fertilized eggs and embryos the same constitutional rights as people. If ratified by voters, the amendment would have completely outlawed abortion under any circumstances.
“The issue is not about the merits of personhood but about whether a state court can interfere with the rights of citizens to gather signatures to amend their constitutions. On the issue, the Oklahoma Supreme Court decision is wrong. But this is by no means the end of the road in Oklahoma. Personhood initiatives will continue to expand throughout the country,” Mat Staver of the Liberty Counsel said.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the ballot initiative violated the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which upheld the right to have an abortion.
Legislation similar to the “fetal personhood” ballot measure passed in the Oklahoma Senate in February by a 34-8 vote. However, Oklahoma House Speaker Kris Steele and the State House Republican Caucus decided not to bring the bill to the House floor for a vote.
The problem of course is that eventually one of these cases will end up in front of SCOTUS, and there's four built-in votes to grant personhood and end abortion completely, not to mention to set up the criminalization of contraception and miscarriage. Should Romney be elected, that number will increase, and then it's game over for most of the civil rights based decisions of the last century.
Of course, the number of women who will still vote for Romney will be in the tens of millions next week, something to keep in mind.
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