Intro: "The high court rules unanimously that a proposed state constitutional amendment that would define a fertilized human egg as a person violates U.S. Supreme Court precedent."
Oklahoma state Sen. Constance N. Johnson, D-Oklahoma City, speaks at a rally in opposition to the state Senate's passage of a bill that grants the rights of personhood to fertilized human eggs, at the state Capitol in Oklahoma City. (photo: Sue Ogrocki/AP)
03 May 12
he Oklahoma Supreme Court on Monday halted an effort to grant "personhood" rights to human embryos, saying the measure is unconstitutional.
The state's highest court ruled unanimously that a proposed amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution defining a fertilized human egg as a person violates a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving a Pennsylvania case and "is clearly unconstitutional." Supporters of the personhood amendment were trying to gather enough signatures to put it before Oklahoma voters on the November ballot.
Opponents contend that the measure would ban abortions without exception and interfere with a woman's right to use certain forms of contraception and medical procedures, such as in vitro fertilization.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights filed a protest with the state Supreme Court on behalf of several Oklahoma doctors and residents. They asked the court to stop the group Personhood Oklahoma from gathering signatures.
The nine-member court determined that the initiative petition "is void on its face" and struck it down.
"The only course available to this court is to follow what the United States Supreme Court, the final arbiter of the United States Constitution, has decreed," the court said.
The ruling is the latest setback for abortion opponents who have been pursuing personhood measures in several states. In December, a judge in Nevada ruled that a personhood initiative petition was vague and could not be circulated for signatures to qualify for the 2012 ballot. Similar proposals were defeated last year in Mississippi and Colorado.
The backers of the signature drive say their goal is to set up a legal challenge to the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 that gave women a legal right to abortion.
