If you truly believe that more people believe that than don't, put it on the ballot. Get it OUT of the federal government, the courts, and let the people decide.
Hey, here's an idea. Why not let each person decide for themselves? The right of the people to be secure in their persons, to their right of privacy, to their right to make their own decisions and take personal responsibility for their actions.
You have your beliefs, and you have no problem using the federal courts, the IRS, to use force to REQUIRE me to go along with them. THAT is EXACTLY why government, at any level, should stay out of health care. IT IS PERSONAL.
Well, the government isn't forcing you to have an abortion. But, if you put it to a ballot vote, then you are necessarily getting the government involved in personal, private decisions.
In Colorado, for example, an anti-abortion ballot issue was defeated 3-1 in 2008 and 2010, and in 2012 they couldn't even get enough signatures on the petition to get it o the ballot. They're at it again for 2014, trying to get a ballot initiative that redefines personhood to grant unborn persons full and complete legal rights of born persons, to make no distinctions between the born and unborn. Of course, the pre-born personhood concept raises broad practical, legal and ethical questions, many of which personhood groups have generally tried to play down in their politically charged amendment campaigns, because if they get involved in a debate about them, they'll look silly. It would open up the pregnant women to child abuse charges for drinking, smoking, eating anything that someone else deems unhealthy, for jogging, for slipping and falling down, for having a natural miscarriage, and for passing along genetic birth defect traits to her unborn person.
In 2006 Michigan tried to get a personhood issue on the ballot. They failed to get enough signatures. Their ballot measure was modeled after that of South Dakota, where South Dakota legislatures passed a state statute criminalizing abortion in 2006, which was later repealed through a voter referendum on the ballot by a wide margin. In 2008 South Dakota tried it again, and it was again defeated by the same wide margin.
Since 1970 there have been 102 state ballot votes banning abortion, of at least in the case of rape or incest, some not even allowing abortion for those cases. And so far all 102 have been defeated by popular vote. Realizing that an up/down vote banning abortion ain't gonna happen, the anti-abortion groups have in recent years tried the personhood angle or the redefining of "child" or "baby" to mean pre-born, without once mentioning abortion in the ballot measures. They believe they can sneak a de facto anti abortion law past the stupid masses, and even though the masses are pretty stupid, they aren't that stupid, and so far every redefining measure has been defeated. They're also trying to use cumbersome restrictions, like a 48 hour waiting period, informed consent by the mother (including mandatory ultrasounds and audible recordings of the fetus), requiring second trimester abortions take place not in clinics but only in hospitals and not on an outpatient basis, etc.
I gotta give Colorado's 2014 measure props, though, as they have worded that to be about as unobjectionable as it can get. And it just might sneak past the idiots on election day (though it probably won't hold up under a Supreme Court challenge based on the right to privacy).
“Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution protecting pregnant women and unborn children by defining ‘person’ and ‘child’ in the Colorado criminal code and the Colorado wrongful death act to include unborn human beings?”
On the surface that seems pretty innocuous and straightforward, hardly something to object to, but it'll have all of the consequences, intended and unintended, that comes with the broad and vast legal, moral and ethical issues of personhood. Ironically, Colorado already has statues and criminal codes dealing specifically with the wrongful death or injury of a fetus.
The ballot measures that are likely to pass, however, are the ones that prevent the state from being forced to pay for abortions. Most states have conceded that women have the right to an abortion, but they draw the line at them having the right to have the state taxpayers pay for it.
