OH Ballot Board Approves Language for Personhood Amendment
The Ohio Ballot Board approved the language purposed by anti-abortion rights groups for a personhood amendment, which proposes to give constitutional rights to a fertilized egg. The petitioners must now collect 385,245 signatures from 44 of Ohio's 88 counties in order for the initiative to appear on the state's November ballot.
If the personhood initiative appears on the ballot, emergency contraception, birth control pills, IUDs, and abortions - even in cases of rape and incest or to save the life of the woman or girl - would be threatened. The initiative would even go so far as to eliminate medical choices for women, including some cancer treatments, in vitro fertilization, and could allow the state to investigate and even prosecute a woman for a miscarriage.
In November, Mississippi voters defeated the Personhood Amendment by a vote of 58% to 42% with 96 percent of precincts reporting. Anti-abortion and anti-birth control extremists have indicated that they intend to put a similar measure on five state ballots in 2012.
5/22/2013 Immigration Reform Bill Advances In Senate - Last night, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a sweeping immigration reform bill in a bipartisan vote of 13 to 5. . . .
5/22/2013 Afghan Women Arrested for 'Moral Crimes' Increases 50% - A new report by the Human Rights Watch shows that in the past 18 months the number of women in Afghanistan incarcerated for 'moral crimes' has increased from 400 to 600, a 50% growth.
Many of the women imprisoned for moral crimes were arrested running away from forced or abusive marriages and families, even though there is no law against leaving. . . .
5/22/2013 Army Commander Suspended for Adultery Amid Wave of Sexual Assaults - On Tuesday, Brigadier General Bryan T Roberts was suspended from his position as commander of the Fort Jackson, South Carolina training camp which trains approximately 60% of incoming female recruits pending an investigation into allegations of adultery.
Roberts was suspended following allegations of "adultery and a physical altercation." Colonel Christian Kubik, an Army spokesperson for the Training and Doctrine Command, told reporters "We don't have any evidence of any sexual assault. . . .
