History
When the majority of the world's remaining mutant population moved to San Francisco[2] some were excited and others, like the Hellfire Cult, feared what would happen. Simon Trask and his anti-mutant rights group, the Humanity Now! Coalition, tried to capitalize on this fear by forming Proposition X (Mutant Breeding Act Ballot Initiative, Prop X) to legislate mutant reproductive rights. Pointing to the massacre in Cooperstown; Alaska after the first mutant birth since M-Day as precedence, Trask began to gain traction in the California state legislature to muscle Prop X to an emergency ballot vote.
If it passed, Proposition X would require all humans who are X-Gene positive to undergo mandatory chemical birth control procedures.[1]
While Humanity Now! began its march on San Francisco, they were met by a peaceful protest of Prop X opponents led by Beast and composed of both mutants and humans. However, Hellion and several other notorious mutants incited a riot. When mutant riots broke out in San Francisco, Norman Osborn, director of the national peace keeping organization H.A.M.M.E.R., declared martial law and sent his Avengers and his X-Men in to quell the riots and take down the X-Men leading to the events of Utopia.[3]Notes
- Proposition X is a fairly clear reference to the real world California law, Proposition 8, denying same sex couples marriage rights.
- The idea of legislating mutants was also explored with the Mutant Registration Act and the Superhuman Registration Act.