Right to Life Amendment of 2012

"The Right to Life Amendment of 2012"--it's what a group of state legislators are calling a new anti-abortion bill just months after the Personhood Initiative was defeated by voters.

Personhood was rejected by 58% of Mississippi voters.  Now, the state legislature is again tackling the issue.

Five Representatives authored "House Concurrent Resolution 61".  Four are Republicans.  One is a Democrat.  All are men.

If the initiative makes it to the ballot, Mississippians would again vote to amend the Constitution and define a "person" from conception to death.  The amendment would not prohibit contraceptives, birth control or in vitro fertilization.

Millsaps College Political Science Professor Dr. Michael Reinhard explains the convincing defeat of Personhood:  "It was defeated by a decisive margin, but it was defeated in really the last 10 days. The anti-Prop-26 forces had a very savvy political consultant, and they raised a lot of questions that frankly the pro-26 side didn't have answers for."

Pro-life state lawmakers decided now is the time to answer those questions--while Personhood is fresh in everyone's mind.

"A lot of problems people had was IVF, birth control, miscarriage, and so a lot of that, a lot of people wanted to clean that language up," explains Representative Chris Brown, a Republican from Mississippi's 20th District, and a co-author of House Concurrent Resolution 61.

Not everyone's on board, though.

"It's throwing that issue out there that always raises lots of money," says Representative Steve Holland, a Democrat from District 16.

Personhood sparked debate and generated cash for both sides.

We asked Dr. Reinhard if there are, indeed, fundraising dollars to be made from another Personhood debate.

"Well, I think there's always fundraising to be made from it on both sides," says Dr. Reinhard, "But I think the primary reason people get involved in these issues on both sides is because they believe in the issue."

The Republican authors say it's not about money.

"I'm not seeing a money angle there," says Representative Brown.  "I think the opposition will definitely raise more money than the pro-life people will out of it."

"I think it'd be better posture for the legislature to let that issue alone this year," says Representative Holland.  "We've got major budget problems, we've got other issues that are vastly important like our public school system that we need to spend our energy on."

We asked Representative Tracy Arnold, a Republican from District 3 and co-author of the bill, if "The Right to Life Amendment of 2012" is as big of an issue as the economy or as education:  "Well to me it's a major issue," he told us.

Right now, there's no timeline on when the resolution will be discussed in the legislature.  In fact, it may not even be this year.

TO SEE A COPY OF HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 61, CLICK HERE.