Ohio’s anti-abortion activists face setback with ‘personhood’ bill

Ohio's anti-abortion activists are facing setbacks in their attempt to get a 'personhood' measure on the state's November ballots, the Associated Press reported. 

Pro-life organization Personhood Ohio wants the state constitution to define life's beginning as the moment when a human egg is fertilized, and has been pushing to get enough signatures to have the issue decided on by voters in the fall. 

So far, the group has amassed 20,000 odd signatures in support of the bill, which is just slightly above 5 percent of the 385,000 signatures they need, Slate reported. The deadline for the total number of signatures is July 4. 

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"I don't know what I'm going to get the last week of this month, but it needs to be a ton to get it by July 4," Patrick Johnston, Personhood Ohio's director, told the AP, acknowledging that the group might not get enough signatures in time to make the ballot for this year's presidential election.

The ballot vote falls during a pivotal election year in the battleground state, which has Mitt Romney, who is pro-life and supports state-level legislation according to the New York Times, running against pro-choice President Barack Obama. 

Ohio is not the first state to try and get "personhood" amendments on their November ballots, according to Slate. Anti-abortion activists in Nevada and California both failed to get the required number of signatures in time, and similar amendments have been defeated in Montana, Colorado, and Oklahoma, where a court struck down the pro-life definition as unconstitutional, Slate reported. 

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