HELENA, Mont. (AP) - An anti-abortion lawmaker in Montana wants voters to chime in on the question of when life begins by asserting in the state constitution that a woman’s fertilized egg, at its singular moment of conception, is a “person” under the law.
Republican Rep. Derek Skees of Kalispell joined dozens of supporters during a legislative hearing Tuesday in calling for a ballot referendum that would allow voters to directly weigh in on the divisive issue of abortion.
The proposed referendum before the House Judiciary Committee is one of three anti-abortion bills being considered during the current session by the Montana Legislature. On Friday, the state Senate along party lines endorsed a proposal seeking to extend protections to so-called “pain-capable” fetuses. Last week, a House committee further advanced a bill that would effectively ban all abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy by requiring doctors to save a fetus.
While the latest proposal makes no mention of abortion, Skees was forthright in his intent: to use his bill as the “tip of the spear” that could help topple Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.
“We just won the presidency with a new president, and his position is pro-life. His vice president is pro-life. The majority of folks in both chambers in Washington, D.C., are Republican, and the majority of them are pro-life,” Skees said, noting that Republican control of Washington could provide opportunities to shift the debate on abortion.
“We have some awesome opportunities within Trump’s eight years of presidency,” he said. “We could have two more Supreme Court justices.”
The measure would accord due process under the Montana Constitution to any person, and the referendum would ask voters to define a “person” as “all members of the species Homo sapiens at any stage of development, including the stage of fertilization or conception, regardless of age, health, level of functioning, or condition of dependency.”
Supporters of the bill packed the hearing room, with some speakers sharing their travails of mistakes, including unwanted pregnancies ended by decisions that could not be undone.
Opponents say the proposal represents not only another attempt to outlaw abortion, but could also bring legal scrutiny to in-vitro fertilization procedures because of the proposal’s unambiguous definition of life and a person.
Aimee Grmoljez, a lobbyist for the Billings Clinic, one of the region’s largest health care providers, said the proposed constitutional amendment could complicate the lives of women trying to conceive by in-vitro fertilization because it could potentially criminalize the procedure if any unused fertilized eggs are destroyed.
“Our political environment gives me pause right now. But we’re advocating for women and their medical right to make decisions. And that won’t change no matter who’s in office,” said Dawn Dockstader, the manager of Planned Parenthood’s health centers in Helena and Missoula.
If the proposal becomes law, it would almost certainly be challenged in court, said S.K. Rossi, the advocacy and policy director for the ACLU of Montana.
To make the ballot, the measure would have win support from at least two-thirds of each chamber of the Legislature.
Previous attempts in the last few legislative sessions have failed, and so have attempts to place the matter on the ballot through an initiative.
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