ORLANDO, Florida (www.forerunner.com) – For the past few years, many supporters of the Personhood amendments have been disheartened to find that some neo-conservative political action groups, such as the National Right to Life Committee, Americans United for Life, and The Eagle Forum, refused to back the various state Personhood efforts choosing instead to “chip away at Roe v. Wade with incremental measures” that allow exceptions for legalized abortion.
But hold the phone! This is all changing fast.
Not only has Personhood picked up some endorsements from several heavy weights in recent months, but a sea change of major proportions appears to be underway in the pro-life movement. According to Georgia Right to Life president, Dan Becker, who launched the first Personhood initiative in the state of Georgia in 2007, “In recent years, and especially in the past few months, I believe we have been witnessing a paradigm shift in the pro-life movement.”
Personhood Florida hosted Dan Becker on Friday, September 16 and 17th in several venues throughout central Florida. Becker first visited Charisma News to discuss what he’s calling “the pro-life movement of the 21st century.”
Later Becker debated the head of Florida’s ACLU on the issue of Personhood. He corrected the misinformation that the ACLU is spreading that a Personhood amendment will curtail birth-control, IVF and stem cell research. “This is not so. It is the human rights issue of the 21st century,” said Becker.
Under Becker’s leadership, the Georgia group has lobbied against abortion, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning and euthanasia. On July 20, Personhood Georgia placed a straw poll question on Republican primary ballots in 47 counties, which served as a barometer of sorts on anti-abortion beliefs. “Do you support an amendment to the Georgia state constitution so as to provide that the paramount right to life is vested in each human being from the earliest biological beginning until natural death?” read the poll. The poll passed in every county by a wide margin, even in the counties surrounding the most liberal urban areas of the state, Savannah and Atlanta.
At a Friday night meeting at Resound Missions Base in Orlando, Florida, Becker was introduced by Florida state representative Charles Van Zant. Author of the Florida for Life bill, Van Zant is the first statesman in history to introduce a bill in Florida that would end all elective abortion, which echoes some of the language in many Personhood measures. Van Zant gave an update on his House Bill 415, which states that “all life comes from the Creator and begins at conception,” and 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.”
Recently, the Personhood Mississippi campaign, which will likely pass a pro-life amendment to their state constitution in the November 2011 election, received the support of prominent Republican leaders including Mike Huckabee and pro-life groups such as the American Family Association, Liberty Counsel and the Family Research Council. The Mississippi Personhood Amendment would recognize the right to life of all human beings from biological beginning to natural death.
Huckabee addressed a fundraiser for the personhood campaign and urged Mississippians to pass the Amendment.
But here’s what I don’t assume. I do not assume that you comprehend the battle you’re going to face over the next couple of months in this fight for Amendment 26. You have no idea how many millions of dollars are likely to be poured into your state and it’s not stimulus money and economic development and job creation, it is hardcore political money that is designed to preserve the abortion industry which is a multimillion dollar industry specifically designed in order to terminate life and make people rich. Let’s not kid ourselves; this is not about elevating women this is about elevating wealth on behalf of those who profit from the sale of death…
The reason that America is more pro-life than it ever has been is because the younger generation of Americans are more pro-life than their mothers and their grandmothers. And do you know why? Because science has affirmed what God has been trying to scream to us all along: that is a human life! Thank God for the science that’s affirmed it!
A few quotes from a recent article in a Sun Herald article say it is almost a given that the Mississippi Personhood Amendment will pass:
Most political observers have little doubt three ballot initiatives to amend the Mississippi Constitution will pass on Nov. 8. Rickey Cole, state Democratic Party director … “I believe there are going to be Republicans and Democrats voting yes and no on all three initiatives … The party hasn’t taken a position on any of the initiatives …”
The two gubernatorial candidates, Republican Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant and Democratic Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree, have both said they support the initiatives, or at least letting voters decide them. Most candidates statewide have taken similar stances. Bryant is named as co-chair of the group pushing the personhood amendment.
