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California Pro-Lifers Launch Human Rights Amendment Petition Campaign

By Katie Walker

WASHINGTON, D.C., September 29, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - California has joined the race to recognize human rights and personhood for all human beings from the biological beginning of development.

Some of the state's most outspoken pro-life advocates submitted the California Human Rights Amendment to Attorney General Jerry Brown following a press conference Monday in Sacramento.

"The preborn, while demonstrably alive and demonstrably human, are not protected 'persons' under our state constitution," said Lila Rose, the 21-year-old student pro-life activist, president of Live Action and cosponsor of the amendment. "Our laws must protect each person's basic human right to life, from the beginning of his or her life until the end."

The push is backed by the California Civil Rights Foundation, a coalition of pro-lifers including Rose, and sponsor Walter Hoye, the pastor arrested and imprisoned in 2008 for standing in silent witness outside an abortion mill.

"The California Human Rights Amendment recognizes that valuing human life is fundamental to life itself," Hoye said at the press conference, "and is the cornerstone of peace and prosperity for any society."

Hoye and Rose were joined by Judie Brown, president of American Life League, and Keith Mason, founder of PersonhoodUSA.

The activists stressed that personhood fulfills the dream of the civil rights movement.

"The injustice of denying the personhood of whole classes of human beings is an injustice that cannot go unchallenged," Brown said. "Now is the time for justice. Nothing less is acceptable in a republic based on the principle of equal justice for one and all."

California joins personhood movements in Missouri, Florida, Montana and Colorado. California state law requires a petition be circulated and signed by a number of people equal to at least 8 percent of votes cast for governor during the last state election.

The California Human Rights Amendment reads:

Article 1, Section 7

(c) The term "person" applies to all living human organisms from the beginning of their biological development as human organisms -- regardless of the means by which they were procreated, method of reproduction, age, race, sex, gender, physical well-being, function, or condition of physical or mental dependency and/or disability.

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