Lansing, MI (LifeNews.com) -- Michigan is the latest state where pro-life advocates are working on a personhood amendment to the state constitution that would regard unborn children from conception as persons under the law. The measure has the potential of banning abortions and other practices like human cloning that kill unborn children.

Rep. Jim Slezack, a pro-life Democrat, is the leading sponsor of the amendment in the Michigan legislature along with several other legislators.

The Michigan Personhood Amendment states, "Every human person has a right to life, which is the paramount and most fundamental right guaranteed under the constitution and laws of this state."

"With respect to the fundamental and inalienable right to life, the word 'person' applies to all human beings, irrespective of age, race, gender, health, function, condition of dependency, including physical or mental dependency, or method of reproduction, from the beginning of biological development, including fertilization," the amendment continues.

Cal Zastrow, a Michigan pro-life advocate who tried to get a personhood amendment on the state ballot, told LifeNews.com he is pleased to see the bill.

“It is tremendous that for the first time in Michigan Legislature history, an Amendment has been introduced to protect all humans no matter how small, by love and by law," he said.

Zastrow previously founded Michigan Chooses Life and promoted the Prenatal Child Protection Amendment, that would place a similar prohibition in the Michigan state constitution by guaranteeing constitutional due process and equal protection rights to prenatal children beginning at the point of conception.

The group launched a petition drive to obtain 317,000 signatures of registered voters required to place the proposal on the November 2006 ballot but eventually fell short.

The amendment came under fire from Michigan pro-life groups that said it would be declared unconstitutional and would add to the pro-Roe v. Wade case law making it more difficult to overturn that infamous decision.

They also worried a decision overturning the amendment would strike down state laws as well that have already proven effective in reducing abortions in the state by as much as 50 percent.

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