The reproductive rights community will see a dangerous parental notification referendum on the 2012 ballot and will be faced with an extreme over reaching "personhood" ballot initiative.

 

NARAL Pro-Choice Montana and our allies were successful in defeating nearly every anti-choice bill that was introduced. Despite our best efforts, HB 627, a dangerous referendum that would require young women under the age of 16 to notify their parent or seek permission from a judge before having an abortion passed with just the simple majority it needed to be placed on the 2012 ballot.

 

The troubling fact is that some young women cannot tell their parents without putting their lives at risk - they come from abusive or violent homes or because their pregnancy is the result of incest. Parental notification laws are risky because they put vulnerable young women into extremely dangerous situations.

 

In fact, a parental notification law was passed in 1995 but was soon declared unconstitutional. In 1999, a Montana court found that Montana's parental notification law violated two different sections of the Montana Constitution. HB 627 would reenact that invalid law and would not fix the serious constitutional violations of the law--which violates the equal protection clause of the Montana Constitution by infringing, without adequate justification, on a young woman's right to privacy--that led to the court striking down the entire law.

 

 

Anti-choice activists have started gathering signatures to qualify a “personhood” amendment for the 2012 ballot.

 

This dangerous measure would establish legal rights starting at fertilization with the intent of banning legal abortion in our state and threatening stem-cell research, in-vitro fertilization, and birth control.

 

This proposed ballot initiative mirrors HB 490, a bill sponsored by Wendy Warburton (R-Havre) this past legislative session, which could not even make it out of a legislature packed with anti-choice law-makers because of its extreme and over-reaching nature.

 

In both 2008 and 2010, anti-choice extremists failed to qualify for the ballot similar amendments. In 2008 they fell over 22,000 signatures short of the requirement and only qualified in 16 of the required 40 legislative districts; and in 2010 they fell nearly 13,000 signatures short of the requirement and only qualified in 23 of the required 40 house districts in their effort to get a total abortion ban on the ballot. In addition, similar amendments were introduced during the 2007, 2009, and 2011 Legislative Sessions and failed by bi-partisan opposition. For the past six legislative sessions, anti-choice groups have been unsuccessful in passing anti-choice measures that restrict reproductive rights and access to health care.