NV Supreme Court Hears Personhood Argument, Debate Could Head To U.S. Supreme Court

[Costanza]

Nevada court hearing ‘personhood’ measure appeal
The Associated Press
Tuesday, April 6, 2010 | 12:17 p.m.

The Nevada Supreme Court is hearing arguments in Las Vegas about whether an initiative to reshape state abortion law should be allowed on the November ballot.

A ballot advocacy group called Personhood Nevada is asking the seven justices to overturn a lower court judge's ruling that the initiative petition is vague and violates state law limiting ballot questions to one subject.

The initiative would amend the state Constitution to define "personhood" as beginning at conception.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada and others argue the initiative hides its real intent _ to ban abortions and restrict common forms of birth control.

An immediate ruling isn't expected. But the court has fast-tracked the case, facing a May 18 deadline for qualifying initiatives on the November ballot.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/apr/06/nevada-court-hearing-personhood-measure-appeal/


Nevada Supreme Court Hears Personhood Argument
Apr 06, 2010 3:56 PM PDT

LAS VEGAS -- The Nevada Supreme Court may soon decide whether an initiative that could make abortion illegal could get on the November ballot.

The Personhood Initiative literally gets down to a fight about defining words such as person and human being. Some medical experts consider a fetus to be a human being. Therefore, a change to Nevada's constitution would give fetuses the legal protections of a person.

"The abortion industry is built on the fact that there is a legal distinction between a person and human being today," said Olaf Vancura, Personhood Nevada president.

Personhood Nevada's attorney says this is not an issue about banning abortion but rather a civil rights issue. Members of their board also claim they are doing this to give rights to elderly and medically disabled people who face rationing from "death panels" in the recent health care reform bill. Claims of death panels turned out to be false.

The group wants the amend the state Constitution to define personhood as beginning at conception.

The ACLU joined Planned Parenthood in fighting this ballot initiative. They say it is nothing more than an attempt to ban abortion.

"This would get rid of the right to choose which we now have protected in Nevada and federally and without telling the voters that's what they're up to," said Lee Rowland, ACLU.

If the Nevada Supreme Court decides to let this initiative on the November ballot and it is passed by voters, it would still face a legal challenge in the U.S. Supreme Court.

It could be anywhere from one to three months before the Nevada Supreme Court makes a decision on whether to allow the initiative on the ballot.

http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=12266498

 

[Costanza]

Re: NV Supreme Court Hears Personhood Argument, Debate Could Head To U.S. Supreme Cou

Articles from advocacy groups on both sides:

NV Supreme Court to Hear Personhood Initiative Challenge
feminist wire | daily newsbriefs
April 6, 2010

The Nevada state Supreme Court will hear arguments today in a case that seeks to overturn a lower court ruling and place a so-called "personhood" amendment on the fall ballot. The measure in question would extend due process rights to "everyone possessing a human genome." According to the Associated Press, the court has fast tracked the case so that there will be a ruling before the May 18 deadline for initiatives to qualify for the fall ballot.

Three plaintiffs represented by lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood first challenged the measure in district court. Carson City District Court Judge James Russell ruled in January that the "personhood" amendment petition could not be circulated because it is too vague and violates a state law that limits the ballot measure questions to one subject. At the time, he said, "the issue to me is, are we adequately informing voters on what they're voting on," according to the Associated Press.

Conservative group Personhood Nevada filed the ballot initiative with the secretary of state's office, in October 2009. Petitioners would have needed to obtain 97,002 valid signatures to have placed the measure on the 2010 ballot. Personhood Nevada made the current appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Abortion opponents have pushed these so-called "personhood initiatives" in several states. These measures declare that a fertilized egg is a "person" who enjoys "inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of the law." The laws would threaten not only abortion itself, but IUDs, emergency contraception, in vitro fertilization clinics, and stem cell research. In the 2008 elections, Colorado's Amendment 48, failed by 73 to 27 percent. Colorado and Mississippi will have personhood measures on their ballots in the upcoming midterm elections.

http://www.msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?ID=12333


Nevada Personhood Amendment on Abortion Heads to State Supreme Court for Hearing
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 6, 2010

Carson City, NV (LifeNews.com) -- Backers of the personhood amendment in Nevada are appealing in front of the Nevada Supreme Court today to make their case for the measure that could ban abortions. They will fight a ruling saying the amendment should not appear before voters on the November ballot.

Abortion advocates in Nevada filed a lawsuit seeking to stop pro-life advocates who want to gather signatures to put a personhood measure on the ballot.

In January, a judge said the language was too broad and violated a state law saying ballot measures can't cover more than one subject.

The amendment does not specifically mention abortion, but says its intent is to codify "the inalienable right to life for everyone, young or old, healthy or ill, conscious or unconscious, born or unborn."

"In the great state of Nevada, the term 'person' applies to every human being," the one-sentence amendment reads.

Personhood amendment supporters appeared the decision to the state's high court and now the seven justices will hold a hearing. An immediate decision on the legal divide is not expected, but the court fast tracked the case so amendment backers could still meet a May 18 deadline to qualify measures for the 2010 election.

Carson City District Court Judge James Russell issued the ruling siding with the ACLU and Planned Parenthood. The pro-abortion groups say the five-paragraph description of the measure does not say that the end result would ban abortions.

"The issue to me is, are we adequately informing voters on what they're voting on," Russell said in his ruling. "There's no way for the voter to understand the effects of the initiative."

In February, Personhood Nevada president Olaf Vancura said there is still enough time to get the personhood amendment on the ballot after the Nevada Supreme Court rules on its appeal.

"It's a civil rights initiative by and for the people. By the logic of First District Court Judge James Russell, the people of Nevada would never be allowed to bring forth a civil rights initiative," he said in a statement LifeNews.com received. "Such denial is unconstitutional. We're appealing to the Supreme Court in hopes that they will recognize the voters' rights in the State of Nevada."

Even if the Supreme Court allows the amendment to move forward, political observers say it faces monumental hurdles.

If the measure is approved, pro-abortion groups would file another lawsuit to overturn it and it would likely be overturned in state or federal court.

Also, Legislative Counsel Bureau Brenda Erdoes tells the Las Vegas Review-Journal that it will run up against a 1990 law that put the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in state law.

Not every pro-life group in the state is on board with the strategy, with some saying that it would be a waste of time and money for what would be a certain loss in the courts and that there are better methods for ending or reducing abortions.

Don Nelson, president of Nevada Life, says money should be put towards education, legislation that has reduced abortions, or electing pro-life candidates who can help change the court so personhood amendments could be upheld.

"Right now, we feel those measures will yield more progress for the pro-life movement," Nelson said. "We would have to pull back from those efforts to get on something like this (petition) that doesn't promise a lot of return."

"This bill has no chance of ending abortion in America or in Nevada. And the effect of this could add more precedence to supporting Roe v. Wade," he explained.

Nelson also said that the current Supreme Court will overturn the amendment and that the focus needs to be placed on changing what is currently a pro-abortion high court.

A similar lawsuit was filed by Planned Parenthood against Colorado's Personhood Amendment in 2008, but the lawsuit failed. Although the Colorado amendment was longer, it was found to be a single subject issue and allowed to proceed.

Colorado was also the first and only state to have voted on a personhood amendment following the new movement for them. That amendment died on a lopsided vote at the polls, losing 73-27 percent.

Voters in Colorado will vote on the amendment again this year and Mississippi voters may do so as well.

http://www.lifenews.com/state4965.html

 

[Greed]

Re: NV Supreme Court Hears Personhood Argument, Debate Could Head To U.S. Supreme Cou

Abortion should be allowed for rape (statutory or otherwise) and the life of the mother.

Do you disagree with that Constanza?

 

[Costanza]

Re: NV Supreme Court Hears Personhood Argument, Debate Could Head To U.S. Supreme Cou

Abortion should be allowed for rape (statutory or otherwise) and the life of the mother.

Do you disagree with that Constanza?

Definitely not.

I think adoption is generally the answer but the life of an undeveloped fetus should not take precedent over the life of the mother.

And walking around pregnant for three quarters of a year is an inappropriate punishment to force upon any woman who was unwillingly inseminated.

I would like to see the social services generally deplored by the "pro-life" crowd reinforced and, where appropriate, enhanced and find a way to put most of these children in homes.

 

[Greed]

Re: NV Supreme Court Hears Personhood Argument, Debate Could Head To U.S. Supreme Cou

I probably made a mistake by not saying, "It should only be allowed," for the reasons I stated earlier.

Would that change your answers?

 

[Costanza]

Re: NV Supreme Court Hears Personhood Argument, Debate Could Head To U.S. Supreme Cou

I probably made a mistake by not saying, "It should only be allowed," for the reasons I stated earlier.

Would that change your answers?

As things stand right now in this country, I err on the "pro-choice" side of things, though I see it more as a matter of economics than choice.

However, if we can get these pro-life people to care as much about actual children as they do pre-life children and create a viable safety net and system of adoption to provide for these children, then it would seem more appropriate to ban the procedure.

There are health considerations often unthought of that often affect women who have had abortions and it is the ending of a life, which does seem to be murder to me. I care more about actual people than theoretical people but most acknowledge a fetus as a life...

Remember Scott Peterson? Specifically, the charges he faced?

You're less likely to have heard of this case:

Man gets prison in pay-to-miscarry beating case
Judge » Rejects charges filed by prosecutors, substitutes anti-abortion counts.
By Melinda Rogers
The Salt Lake Tribune

Vernal » Leo Harrison paused on Tuesday, thinking of how to explain what motivated his son to accept money to beat a pregnant teenager in an attempt to cause her to miscarry.

Aaron Harrison's circle of friends started influencing his decisions when he turned 18, his father said after a judge handed down a prison term to the now 21-year-old.

Harrison delved into petty theft. Then he got into trouble for having sexual relationships with minors. But Harrison's most shocking behavior, his father said, came in May: the day he accepted $150 from a 17-year-old pregnant girl he casually met at a Naples 7-Eleven and brought to the basement of his parent's house, where he kicked her in the stomach five times and bit her neck.

The 7-month-old fetus survived, Harrison was charged, and on Tuesday 8th District Judge A. Lynn Payne ordered him to serve up to five years in prison for the beating.

Leo Harrison said prison is the reality check his son, who is about to become a father, needs.

"I really hope he learns the meaning and value of life," Leo Harrison said, after attending Tuesday's sentencing with his 17-year-old son and parents.

"He says he is [sorry], but I don't think he is. He needs to take responsibility."

Harrison, of Naples, was also sentenced Tuesday in four other unrelated cases -- three of them third-degree felonies. Payne ordered the terms to run consecutively, meaning Harrison could serve up to 20 years behind bars.

The judge called Harrison's conduct in the beating case "horrible beyond description" and said he had "a remarkable disregard for human life."

"I don't think words can describe the kind of depraved conduct you entered into in trying to take the life of a child," Payne said.

In the beating case, Harrison had pleaded guilty to second-degree felony attempted murder, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. But Payne instead sentenced Harrison under Utah's anti-abortion statute, saying a charge of third-degree "attempted killing of an unborn child" better fit the facts of the case.

Deputy Uintah County Attorney Mark Thomas objected to the change, arguing Harrison's confession to police after the beating proves he viewed the situation as attempting to murder the fetus. Thomas pointed to a handwritten statement Harrison gave police that reads in part: "She started to ask me if I knew anyone to kill the kid for her and I said, 'No, I didn't."

"The term used by the defendant was 'to kill' the child," Thomas said, arguing the definition of homicide includes causing the death of another human being, including a fetus at any stage of development.

Thomas called Payne's decision to substitute the charge "unusual" and said his office will appeal.

"This was not an abortion. This was an attempt to kill another human being as defined by [Utah's] homicide statute," said Thomas.

Payne replied in court that it is his job to "apply the law that I think applies to the case."

Harrison did not speak in court Tuesday; neither did the victims in his cases. The girl told police she solicited Harrison to assault her after her boyfriend threatened a breakup if she didn't terminate her pregnancy.

The girl, who gave birth in August, pleaded no contest to second-degree felony criminal solicitation to commit murder. Eighth District Juvenile Court Judge Larry Steele ordered her placed in secure confinement until she is 21.

But earlier this month, Steele reversed himself and released the girl after an attorney argued she did not commit a crime. Utah law states that a woman cannot be held criminally liable for seeking to obtain an abortion for herself.

The girl, who is now 18, is seeking custody of the baby. She declined comment on Tuesday, citing instructions from her attorney to not speak about the case.

Harrison's father said his son's actions have been "very traumatic" for his family. He said he did not know Harrison had taken the girl back to his house until his son was arrested.

Defendant also sentenced for:

» Two counts of third-degree felony unlawful sexual activity with a minor for having sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old girl in 2008.

» Class A misdemeanor violating a protective order for calling the same girl, who is due to give birth to his child next month.

» Third-degree felony burglary and class B misdemeanor counts of theft and criminal mischief for driving two others to a storage facility, where items were stolen from 10 units in April.

» Class A misdemeanor obstructing justice for assisting others who had stolen a 1994 Chevy pickup in 2008 get rid of evidence by dumping the engine over a ledge this year.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_13651599

I see adoption as the solution regarding abortion.

I don't know enough to begin to solve the problem with children not being adopted-- I would LOVE for someone who might know more than me to chime in-- but it seems to me that all parties would be better off if such a system could be instituted.