American Civil Liberties Union

In the midst of endless attacks on women's health, there have been a few recent victories worth celebrating. Yesterday, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a group calling itself "Personhood USA" cannot use the ballot initiative process to ban abortion (and contraception, in vitro fertilization, and miscarriage treatment as well). Intent on granting legal rights to fertilized eggs, these anti-choice activists sought to strip women of their right to determine when and whether to access those critical health care services. The court correctly reasoned that such a ban is "repugnant to the Constitution of the United States," and that allowing it on the ballot would therefore result in nothing but "a costly and futile election." The ACLU and the ACLU of Oklahoma, along with the Center for Reproductive Rights, challenged the initiative in March, and on behalf of the state's women and families, we are enormously grateful and relieved that it won't be on the ballot in November.

A ballot initiative in Oklahoma would redefine a "person" to exist from the moment of "fusion of a female egg with a human male sperm to form a new cell."