Reporting from Atlanta— Now that Mississippi voters, among the most conservative in the nation, have firmly defeated the abortion-banning amendment known as Initiative 26, a broader debate has broken out about whether the "personhood" movement behind the initiative can be successful in putting similar measures before voters in other states in 2012.

The movement seeks to change state constitutions so that a person's life is legally defined as beginning at the moment of fertilization. The Mississippi initiative would have made such a change and, in so doing, outlawed abortion in all cases, including after rape or incest. But on Tuesday, voters rejected the measure 58% to 42% — a loss in a state that is by some measures the nation's most conservative and religious.

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