Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (FLORIDA INDEPENDENT/ Cooper Levey-Baker)

Former presidential contender and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has teamed up with Citizens United to promote “fetal personhood,” a movement sweeping the country in the form of amendments that aim to define as beginning at the moment of conception.

Huckabee acts as narrator in Gift of Life, a film that promotes legislative action meant to overturn the landmark abortion rights act Roe v. Wade. He spoke about the film during a segment that aired last Saturday on his eponymous Fox News program, saying he had a recent discussion with his 5-year-old grandson about his passion for abortion issues.

Huckabee says that the film, which he helped produce, will remind voters that, “while the economy and jobs are center stage, treating every human with worth and dignity is still essential in selecting a leader.” Throughout the film, Huckabee espouses his support for fetal personhood bills, which have become increasingly divisive. Though supporters argue they only want to outlaw abortion, critics have argued that defining life in such broad terms could lead to a variety of unintended consequences and have wide-ranging impacts on cancer research as well as in vitro fertilization.

The issue is even more urgent, Huckabee says, because of the recent FDA approval of over-the-counter sales of the Plan B pill — which Huckabee called “a drug that kills a developing baby.”

The personhood movement has had its setbacks recently — an attempt at an amendment in Florida never yielded enough signatures for ballot placement and, despite support from state legislators, a personhood amendment in Mississippi on the state’s November ballot failed.

A Personhood Florida spokesman told The Florida Independent that, despite those recent setbacks, his group would again attempt an initiative for 2014.

Personhood USA co-founder Keith Mason (Photo: personhoodusa.com)

Undaunted by the failure of similar initiatives across the country, Virginia legislator Bob Marshall has introduced a bill that would define life as beginning at the moment of conception.

As the law reads, unborn children at “every stage of development” would enjoy “all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of the commonwealth, subject only to the laws and constitutions of Virginia and the United States, precedents of the United States Supreme Court, and provisions to the contrary in the statutes of the commonwealth.”

Marshall is known for being outspoken when it comes to abortion, but many pro-lifers find fault with personhood initiatives like his. Critics, including the group National Right to Life, say passage of such a bill could backfire, further strengthening Roe v. Wade.

A similar personhood initiative recently failed in Mississippi, despite a significant amount of support from state leaders — some of whom didn’t necessarily endorse it, but voted for it anyway.

In Georgia, two state lawmakers recently announced their intention to file similar measures, which would grant full individual rights to fertilized without the vague language of Mississippi’s Amendment 26. The leader of Florida’s Personhood affiliate told The Florida Independent that his group would begin a two-year push for a personhood bill in 2012, aiming for ballot placement on Florida’s 2014 ballot.

Even some ardent anti-abortion advocates expressed concerns that the bill would not only outlaw abortion, but could affect in vitro fertilization and birth control use, as well.

National Right to Life was firmly opposed to Amendment 26, arguing that, if passed, the bill would lead to dozens of lawsuits — all of which could end up strengthening Roe v. Wade. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour also expressed reservations about the measure, but ultimately voted in favor of it anyway.

The vague language of the bill also sparked concerns within the medical community, which would have been impacted by the move to grant legal rights to human embryos.

“It flies in the face of common sense,” Douglas Laube said on a Tuesday afternoon phone call. “If every human being is defined as a person from conception, we would see wide-reaching impact to access to women’s health: cancer treatment, fertility treatment, birth control.”

Laube, a gynecologist based in Wisconsin, is the Health Board Chair of Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, a group adamantly opposed to the bill. Though personhood supporters argued that they only aimed to ban abortion, Laube believes the bill would have done much more, negatively impacting even cancer and heart disease treatment.

“Overall health would be affected adversely,” he said. “Chronic disease either made worse by, or caused by, a pregnancy would be denied a treatment.”

Mississippi currently has only one abortion clinic, so women who do wish to undergo an abortion procedure hardly have a plethora of options. The state,which is also a hotbed for abstinence-only education, currently boasts the highest teen pregnancy rate, as well as one of the highest infant mortality rates, in the nation.

“One of the things I’m most passionate about is the usurpation of authority the judiciary has done over the last couple decades in this country,” Santorum told a crowd of about 50 in Urbandale.

Santorum said it’s clear to him the U.S. Constitution gives the judicial branch the least power because it’s listed third in the articles, after the legislative and executive branches. He also questioned whether the Constitution allows for courts outside of the U.S. Supreme Court, and said the two other branches established those courts.

“They can establish them, and if those courts violate the Constitution and do things that they should be stopped from doing, they have the power to repeal those courts, to abolish these courts,” said the Pennsylvania Republican.

The “poster child for rogue courts” is the 9th Circuit, he said, accusing it of rewriting the Constitution. He wants to break the 9th Circuit into two or three separate courts and replace all the judges.

“This will be a very important signal to be sent to the judiciary that they are an equal branch of government, not a superior branch of government,” Santorum said, seemingly contradicting earlier statements.

And while Santorum said he’s “not a big fan” of Constitutional amendments, it’s the only thing that’s left “when the courts have run roughshod.” He wants amendments to ban same-sex marriage and abortion.

“Since they amended the Constitution by legal decision, they only way to legitimately turn around and overturn this interpretation of the Constitution is to clarify it for them and let them know exactly what our country wants,” he said.

He called the Roe v. Wade decision “a legal fiction” that says “not all human life are people.”

“Well we know for a fact that at the moment of fertilization we have an entity that is a unique human being with its own unique DNA and that it is alive,” Santorum said. “Therefore by any biological definition it is a human life, and as a human life it should be treated with the same dignity of all human life in our society.”

He called for a Constitutional amendment defining personhood as the moment of fertilization.

“My proposal is let’s help out the United States Supreme Court determine what a person is, since they seem to have such a hard time figuring that out,” Santorum said.

In some states, like Mississippi, personhood support is fairly widespread. In other states, like Florida, the initiatives have yet to make it to the ballot. But even among members of the anti-abortion community, support for amendments that aim to define a human being at the point of conception isn’t always black and white.

The New York Times highlighted the issue front-and-center this morning, in a piece that details the personhood movement in Mississippi. Both major candidates for governor have endorsed the state’s Amendment 26, as have both candidates for attorney general (one of whom is an incumbent). Mississippi’s lieutenant governor (one of the current gubernatorial candidates) is even co-chairman of the Yes on 26 campaign, though some argue that is only a political maneuver.

But National Right to Life, an anti-abortion organization that recently held its annual conference in Jacksonville, has not thrown its support behind the amendment, and says its passage could backfire in a big way. James Bopp Jr. (.pdf), general counsel of National Right to Life, told the Times that the amendment is “utterly futile” from a pro-life perspective. “From the standpoint of protecting unborn lives it’s utterly futile,” he said, “and it has the grave risk that if it did get to the Supreme Court, the court would write an even more extreme abortion policy.”

The Roman Catholic Church, which is staunchly pro-life, also refuses to back the amendment, saying it could ultimately harm efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards has voiced her concern that passage of Amendment 26 in Mississippi could generate more support for similar efforts in other states, but without support from anti-abortion groups, the personhood movement might not succeed everywhere.

In Florida, an effort to place a personhood amendment on the 2012 ballot has gone nowhere. According to the state Division of Elections, the group sponsoring the measure, Personhood Florida, has not yet recorded any valid signatures.

Last year, vocal pro-life state Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood, told The Florida Independent that he didn’t believe Personhood Florida had “any traction” and stressed the importance of  staying “around the edges of the [abortion] issue.” Another pro-life advocate, Rep. Dennis Baxley, endorsed Personhood Florida, but was hesitant about whether the Legislature should take on the issue, saying that “incremental change” was a more productive path.

Personhood Wisconsin supporters are facing similar obstacles, as those who would seemingly be their allies are instead staunchly opposed to the group’s efforts. Wisconsin Right to Life has even published a position paper (.pdf) titled “Why a Personhood Amendment is Wrong for Wisconsin” in which the group argues the passage of such an amendment would “cancel out” the state’s current abortion ban. The state’s personhood affiliate has lashed out at the group, claiming that its legal reasoning for opposing a state personhood amendment is merely “speculative.” Personhood Wisconsin is currently seeking support in other areas, and specifically looking for a co-sponsor of its amendment in the Wisconsin general assembly.

Personhood critics argue that defining a human being from the moment of conception would ban abortion, but catch birth control and in vitro fertilization in the crosshairs.

Creative Loafing reports,

Though not yet introduced, Van Zant told CL earlier this month that he will bring back the Florida for Life Act before the official session begins in Tallahassee in January. The lawmaker from Keystone Heights says if his bill were to pass, doctors would go to jail for performing an abortion.

“Absolutely. That would be a murder,” he said in phone conversation. “He would be involved in the death of the lives of an infant child and certainly there would be penalties.”

Van Zant, an ordained Baptist minister, has unsuccessfully introduced a similar bill multiple times. He has referred to the measure as the “Florida for Life Act.”

In February, The Florida Independent’s Virginia Chamlee reported that Van Zant’s bill was one of the more extreme anti-abortion bills introduced last session:

In addition to stating that “all life comes from the Creator and begins at conception,” Van Zant’s act also includes language explicitly stating that the United States Supreme Court is not qualified to “determine, establish, or define the moral values of the people of the United States and specifically for the people of Florida.”

The Florida for Life Act also states that the Florida Constitution “contains the sovereign peoples’ acknowledgment of the Creator as the source of constitutional liberty” and that the U.S. Constitution expresses no qualifications for states to “protect life in a manner consistent with the moral consensus of the people, and reflecting the peoples’ belief in a Creator.”

Eighteen bills aimed at limiting abortion rights and access in the state were introduced during the 2011 legislative session. Four of those bills, not including Van Zant’s measure, were eventually signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott. The Legislature also passed an amendment last session that would reverse a state constitutional right to privacy and outlaw public funding for abortion.

While many anti-abortion activists want to wait for Roe v. Wade to be overturned before imposing all-out bans on abortion, Van Zant tells Creative Loafing that he is impatient:

“It’s simply not illegal to have an abortion, that’s the problem,” he says “It’s not unconstitutional. There’s nothing in the Constitution that gives the mother the right to murder their unborn child. Or a doctor. This is a scam on the American public by abortionists and by the population control movement. Eugenics and others who are out there from gosh, since the Civil War, I mean we’ve seen it over and over and over for decades and decades, and we have the abortion movement in our nation that is no more than the population control mechanism of the fed govt. because they fund them and support them.”

The Legislature has already introduced a bill written by the Florida Catholic Conference that would redefine the death of a “viable fetus” as the death of an “unborn child.” The bill would also change laws for vehicular manslaughter involving a pregnant woman. Another bill introduced by state Sen. Anitere Flores, R-Miami, would restrict “the circumstances in which an abortion may be performed in the third trimester or after viability.” Flores’ bill also pushes forward a handful of anti-abortion measures that did not make it through last session, including targeted laws for abortion providers and a wait time for women seeking an abortion.

According to a campaign press release:

“Voices from the Womb” marks the beginning of the end for Roe v. Wade as members of Congress will have the chance to clearly see the humanity of the child and work together to end the violence of abortion and establish human rights and justice for all.

After October 13, “Voices from the Womb” will begin a national tour performing live ultrasounds in schools, churches state capitals, legislative hearings and public events.

Members of the anti-abortion campaign invited all “535 members of Congress and the public” to the presentation.

The Federal Food and Drug Administration has warned women against undergoing unnecessary ultrasound procedures. Because the long-term effects of repeated ultrasound exposures on a fetus is not fully known, the FDA has warned that it is best to not have one unless it is medically necessary.

Ultrasounds have become a political tool used by the anti-abortion movement in the past couple of years. Anti-abortion advocates have pushed for states to require women seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound procedure, whether it is medically necessary or not, in a effort to dissuade them from having abortions. A law of this kind went into effect in Florida this year.

“Voices from the Womb” is being sponsored by is the Stanton Project, the Christian Defense Coalition and the National Pro-life Center.

The Christian Defense Coalition has held over-the-top anti-abortion demonstrations on Capitol Hill in the past. One of the group’s last events featured a display of “white sheets,” a symbol of the Ku Klux Klan, in front of House Speaker John Boehner’s office in an effort to highlight what they claim is Planned Parenthood racism.

Robert George — founder of the American Principles Project, which sponsored the forum, as well as NOM’s chair emeritus — co-hosted the event alongside Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa). The final candidate roster was Bachmann, Georgia businessman Herman Cain, former U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. (Texas Gov. Rick Perry was originally slated to attend but dropped out at the last minute to take care of wildfires affecting his state.)

In an blog post, NOM gave Bachmann a “solid A” for asserting that Congress should outlaw abortion by authoring a federal constitutional amendment, following a question from George. In the post, NOM noted that Bachmann’s answer “breaks new ground” and praised the candidate for agreeing to choose a vice president who opposes abortion rights and marriage for gay and lesbian couples and for criticizing President Obama for not defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

From the debate, as reproduced in an initial transcript by CNN:

George: Would you as president propose to Congress appropriate legislation pursuant to the 14th Amendment to protect human life in all stages and conditions?

Bachmann: Yes, I would. I would put forward a human life amendment. And, at the same time, I would do everything within my power to restrict the number of abortions that occurs in the United States. Perhaps no other federal law has done more good for prohibiting abortion than the Hyde amendment. And I would do everything I could to keep out the taxpayer funding of abortion.

[...]

George: Because, as I say, some people believe that a constitutional amendment would be needed to overturn Roe vs. Wade, and short of that, the best we can do is put some limitations around the edges and prohibit federal funding, as we have done in the Hyde amendment. But my question goes to a matter of constitutional principle concerning the respective rules of the government. President Lincoln famously said in his first inaugural address that if we permit the policy of the government on matters that are essential to the whole people to be determined simply by the Supreme Court, we will have abdicated our responsibility, handed over self-government to that eminent tribunal, as Lincoln said. So, given the clear mandate of the 14th Amendment, empowering Congress to enforce the guarantee of equal protection, shouldn’t Congress act on that now?

Bachmann: Yes, I believe that they should. And it is not only Abraham Lincoln that subscribed to that view. Thomas Jefferson did as well … because Thomas Jefferson understood that, of the three branches of government, the most important was the United States Congress, consisting of the House and the Senate. The second would be the executive, and the third, and a far distance third, was considered the Supreme Court of the United States. If the Supreme Court, by a plurality of the justices, may impose their own personal morality on the rest of the nation, then we are quite literally being ruled by those individuals, as opposed to giving our consent to the people’s representatives.
[...]

George: And if it meant a confrontation with the Supreme Court, are you prepared for that?

Bachmann: Most assuredly.

Romney, who originally had made headlines for refusing to attend the Freedom Forum but then changed his mind, disagreed with Bachmann, asserting that George’s suggestion would amount to a “constitutional crisis.”

Romney: I would like to see that Supreme Court return to the states the responsibility to determining laws related to abortion, as opposed to having the federal Supreme Court from the bench telling America and all the states how they have to do it. I think that’s the appropriate course. … Now, is there a constitutional path to have the Congress say we’re going to push aside the decision of the Supreme Court and we instead are going to step forward and return to the states this power or put in place our own views on abortion? That would create obviously a constitutional crisis. Could that happen in this country? Could there be circumstances where that might occur? I think it’s reasonable that something of that nature might happen someday. That’s not something I would precipitate.

What I would look to do would be appoint people to the Supreme Court that will follow strictly the constitution as opposed to legislating from the bench. I believe that we must be a nation of laws.

Cain and Gingrich, like Bachmann, said they would support congressional legislation to ban abortion, while Paul sided with Romney, saying: “Violence and murder should be dealt with by the states.”

Watch Bachmann and Romney diverge on abortion and Congress’ power in a video mash-up produced by the Huffington Post:

The personhood proposal would criminalize abortion without exception and outlaw some methods of birth control. The rights of pregnant women would be curtailed. The bill would shut down much of fertility and stem-cell research industries in the state, a fact which weighed strongly against the proposal in Colorado, where the biotech sector thrives.

Most of Colorado’s major Republican candidates for office in 2008 rejected the proposal as overreaching. In the tea party election of 2010, however, all of the major Republican candidates endorsed it. Fourth District freshman Representative Cory Gardner at a tea party candidate forum said he had circulated copies of the initiative at his church.

The Republican and the Democratic candidate for governor in Mississippi have endorsed the proposal, as did the state legislature, which has to approve initiatives before they land on the ballot.

Indeed, Colorado has a much looser initiative system than does Mississippi. In the roughly 30 years that the initiative system has been in place there, only two initiatives have ever made it to the ballot, according to Stateline.

The personhood measure crossed Mississippi’s high procedural hurdles this week, another product of the Republican wave-election of 2010.

Stateline:

The ballot measure comes after a historic legislative year in which states enacted more than 80 new restrictions on abortion, according to a report from the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights. This year’s flurry of laws is more than double the previous record of 34 abortion restrictions enacted in 2005, the institute says. But none are like the measure that Mississippi voters are expected to consider November 8.

Backers of the Mississippi measure are clear: If approved, they say, the initiative would ultimately outlaw abortion and human cloning, embryo stem cell research, and “other forms of medical cannibalism. would be effectively stopped.” Opponents say the measure could make in-vitro fertilization and certain forms of birth control illegal “and miscarriages could become suspect.”

The hard line drawn by the initiatve pleases its backers but it also raises alarm bells for pro-life strategists looking to successfully challenge Roe. They say the bill is sure to be struck down as violating federal law and that such a decision would create even stronger precedent in support of the legalized abortion status quo.

In its report today on the Mississippi proposal, Stateline echoes much of the commentary around the bill that emerged during the last two elections in Colorado. The organization quotes University of Denver political scientist Seth Masket.

“[Personhood] was widely seen as a radical proposal that would require massive changes in state law.”

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Wasserman Schultz told a large crowd of reproductive justice advocates in Florida about the various attempts by the GOP-led U.S. House of Representatives to limit access to women’s health care. #

“We have suffered the most severe attacks on women’s health since Roe v. Wade,” she said. “But we will not go back.” #

She said that she was 6 years old when the Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade; the ruling currently provides abortion rights to women in the United States. Wasserman Schultz said that most of her life she never considered that this specific right could possibly be taken away. However, recent legislative action in states and in the U.S. Congress have given her a cause for concern. #

“I have never felt my right as a woman was more threatened than I do today,” she said. “This is personal.” #

Wasserman Schultz also told the many activists in the crowd they should not let the state Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott “undo everything [they] have accomplished.” #

“Tell the governor to stop playing politics with women’s health,” she said. #

Scott recently held a signing ceremony for four bills aimed at curbing abortion rights in the state. This past session, GOP legislators in Florida aggressively sought to make it harder for women to gain access to an abortion. #

One of a handful of women’s health advocates in the state legislature, state Sen. Nan Rich, D-Weston, was also present at the rally, along with some of her colleagues in the legislature. State Sen. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood,  and state Rep. Lori Berman, D-Delray Beach, were among those present. Rich told the crowd that Scott’s recent signing event was an effort to “ingratiate himself with zealots.” Scott invited representatives of anti-abortion groups, as well as some of the more socially conservative members of the Legislature, to the event. #

U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, also attended the rally. He said he witnessed Republicans in the House use the “crudest and most horrific terms” when discussing women’s health in the chamber this past year. #

Wasserman Schultz has previously said she believes the GOP’s attacks on women’s health would be an asset to the Democratic Party in 2012. #