LOS ANGELES, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- An organization based in Colorado has begun a petition drive to place "personhood" measures on state election ballots next year, the group says.
Keith Mason, co-founder of Personhood USA says his organization's goal is to amend state constitutions with the declaration that personhood begins at conception, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.
"We have big and small efforts going on in 30 states now," Mason says. "Our goal is to activate the population."
Proponents of personhood measures place their hopes in the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision in which Justice Harry Blackmun wrote for the majority that a fetus is not legally a person.
Critics say giving a fertilized egg the status of personhood threatens everything from birth control to in vitro fertilization and stem cell research.
"It's a backdoor abortion ban," says Ted Miller, a spokesman for NARAL Pro-Choice America, which is working with other abortion rights groups to defeat such measures.
