Alaska 'Personhood' Initiative Would Create 'Legal Quagmire,' Editorial Says

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A proposed ballot initiative in Alaska would unleash a "legal quagmire" if it were to succeed at its goal of granting constitutional rights beginning at conception, according to an Anchorage Daily News editorial. To become law, supporters of the proposal would have to overcome a legal challenge, obtain enough signatures to qualify for the ballot and win the approval of voters. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that," the editorial says, adding that its approval "would essentially assert state control over the bodies of pregnant women."

The initiative would lead to a number of "bizarre questions" -- such as whether rapists had the right to ensure their children are born or whether a woman who smokes and drinks while pregnant could face legal consequences, according to the editorial. It continues that initiative sponsor Christopher Kurka is on a "futile quest because abortion, with some limitations, is a constitutional right in the United States, and a state-level voter initiative can't override the U.S. Constitution."

The newspaper writes that Alaska "would be justified" to stop the initiative on the grounds that it is unconstitutional. However, state officials who oppose abortion rights are trying to preserve the ballot initiative by including language specifically saying that it would not affect the state's abortion laws -- even though Kurka has said that it is an effort to stop legal abortion. "When a proposed initiative has to say upfront that it can't accomplish what it's intended to accomplish, and carries the prospect of personally invasive, unintended consequences for Alaska women, it doesn't belong on any ballot," the editorial concludes (Anchorage Daily News, 12/3).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women's Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women's Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

© 2009 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.

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