Initiative challenges reproductive rights
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Juneau Empire: The Alaska Department of Law has questioned the constitutionality of a ballot initiative that would recognize fetuses as legal persons, but that hasn't precluded Lt. Gov. Craig Campbell from his duty to approve the vetted petition for signature gathering.
Legal Personhood Initiative sponsor Christopher Kurka of Eagle River must collect 32,734 signatures within a year to qualify for the ballot. The initiative campaign is one of several "personhood" campaigns underway around the nation by anti-abortion activists who have been stymied by the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling that declared abortion bans unconstitutional.
Kurka said that recognizing a fetus as a person is a step toward stopping abortion, but acknowledged that to do so entirely would be difficult. "You can never eliminate abortion completely in a society because people area always going to do evil things," Kurka told Anchorage's KTUU-TV. The initiative "brings to the forefront the issue of whether or not the unborn child is a person or not," he said.
LaRae Jones of the Juneau Pro-Choice Coalition said the initiative is one more in a series of unconstitutional attempts to restrict women's rights to legal and safe abortion. "To me, it looks like they are trying to return us to back alley abortions," she said. "If a fetus is not viable and could not live on its own, then it is not a human being yet," Jones said. Campbell's certification of the initiative came after Attorney General Dan Sullivan concluded that the initiative might have "legal issues," but met the state's criteria for being circulated as an initiative petition.
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