Personhood Florida officially launches new petition

A group that wants Florida to define life as beginning at the moment of conception has officially launched its “personhood petition.” According to a blog post on the group’s website, the new Florida ProLife Personhood Amendment is based on language by the Family Research Council and American Family Association.

Personhood amendments have cropped up across the country — most notably in Mississippi where, although support was strong, a personhood bill was soundly rejected last month. Personhood Florida’s Bryan Longworth told The Florida Independent after the Mississippi loss that he remains undeterred.

“[Mississippi] definitely made more progress than any other state in the past,” Longworth said. “We’re not deterred by this loss. We’re following the William Wilberforce pattern. He didn’t win the first time, didn’t win the second time, the third time … but he kept trying.”

Due to a change in law, which limits the shelf life of amendment signatures from four years to two years, the group has begun to contact Florida pastors and churches to petition in January — aiming for placement on Florida’s 2014 ballot.

According to the new post on Personhood Florida’s website, the new Florida ProLife Personhood Amendment is based on language endorsed by the Family Research Council and the American Family Association and the petition language has been “designed by a think tank of prolife personhood attorneys and satisfies 11 conditions needed to unite pro-life ministries.”

“Adapting this language,” reads the post, “enables all states to come into unity anticipating and facilitating a federal prolife personhood amendment.”

The group is asking volunteers to encourage churches to collect signatures for the petition on “Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, January 22.” The group’s hope is to organize “teams of volunteers in every Florida county to contact every church, every pastor in Florida.”