Mississippi Personhood
A constitutional amendment facing voters in Mississippi on Nov. 8, and similar initiatives brewing in half a dozen other states including Florida and Ohio, would declare a fertilized human egg to be a legal person, effectively branding abortion and some forms of birth control as murder.
With this far-reaching anti-abortion strategy, the proponents of what they call personhood amendments hope to reshape the national debate.
“I view it as transformative,” said Brad Prewitt, a lawyer and executive director of the Yes on 26 campaign, which is named for the Mississippi proposition. “Personhood is bigger than just shutting abortion clinics; it’s an opportunity for people to say that we’re made in the image of God.”
Image of God? Conservatives are desperately trying to establish a Theocracy. Founding Fathers be damned!
This is another tactic in their war against abortion, but we’d be foolish to think outlawing abortion is their only goal. I wouldn’t even say it’s their main goal, because this amendment goes far beyond outlawing abortion.
Opponents, who were handing out brochures on Saturday to tailgate partiers before the University of Southern Mississippi football game in Hattiesburg, said they hoped to dispel the impression that the amendment simply bars abortions — a popular idea in Mississippi — by warning that it would also limit contraceptives, make doctors afraid to save women with life-threatening pregnancies and possibly hamper in vitro fertility treatments.
Oh yeah, this is bigger than abortion. Don’t believe me? Well, Irin Carmon, of Salon, took a trip to Mississippi to speak with the forces behind Initiative 26 and here is what she discovered. Go read the entire article. It’s long, but worth it.
On Rape:
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re rich or poor, black or white, or even if your father was a rapist!”
Guess that answers that question. If you’re raped and end up pregnant… too bad. Remember, some people wanted to add an adjective to rape: Forcible. They seem to believe that if you live through a rape it isn’t rape.
On Birth Control:
That’s partly because the Personhood movement hopes to do nothing less than reclassify everyday, routine birth control as abortion. The medical definition of pregnancy is when a fertilized egg successfully implants in the uterine wall. If this initiative passes, and fertilized eggs on their own have full legal rights, anything that could potentially block that implantation – something a woman’s body does naturally all the time – could be considered murder. Scientists say hormonal birth-control pills and the morning-after pill work primarily by preventing fertilization in the first place, but the outside possibility, never documented, that an egg could be fertilized anyway and blocked is enough for some pro-lifers.
Indeed, at least one pro-Personhood doctor in Mississippi, Beverly McMillan, refused to prescribe the pill before retiring last year, writing, “I painfully agree that birth control pills do in fact cause abortions.” Bush does prescribe the pill, but says, “There’s good science on both sides … I think there’s more science to support conception not occurring.” Given that the Personhood Amendment is so vague, I asked her, what would stop the alleged “good science” on one side from prevailing and banning even the pill?
Bush paused. “I could say that is not the intent,” she said. “I don’t have an answer for that particular [case], how it would be settled, but I do know this is simple.” Which part is simple? “The amendment is simple,” she said. “You can play the ‘what if’ game, but if you keep it simple, this is a person who deserves life.” What about the IUD, which she refuses to prescribe for moral reasons, and which McMillan told me the Personhood Amendment would ban? “I’m not the authority on what would and would not be banned.” No – Bush simply plays one on TV. And if her amendment passes, only condoms, diaphragms and natural family planning — the rhythm method – would be guaranteed in Mississippi.
“I painfully agree that birth control pills do in fact cause abortions.” Doctor Beverly McMillan is a disgrace to her profession. She doesn’t understand how the pill works. If McMillian is your doctor… Run. Wait, everyone relax. She retired last year.
**Allow me to inject some facts before continuing: How the pill works. Read it if you don’t already know, and send a copy to “Doctor” McMillian.
Criminalization:
Colorado-based Personhood activist, Ed Hanks, is more than willing to publicly take things to their logical conclusion. He wrote on the Personhood Mississippi Facebook page that after abortion is banned, “the penalties have to be the same [for a women as well as doctors], as they would have to intentionally commit a known felony in order to kill their child. Society isn’t comfortable with this yet because abortion has been ‘normalized’ — as the Personhood message penetrates, then society will understand why women need to be punished just as surely as they understand why there can be no exceptions for rape/incest.” [emphasis mine]
Kudos to Mr. Hanks’ honesty, since we all know where this is heading.
Life Of The Mother:
As for cases where a woman has to choose between pursuing treatment for a life-threatening illness and her pregnancy, McMillan said, “I like to think about them as a graph. You have health going up and down, you have time nine months going this way. Here’s the mother’s health going down, down, down over those nine months of pregnancy. Here’s the baby’s chance of survival going up, up, up over that nine months. What I pray to recognize is that when those two lines intersect. That’s not the time for an abortion but for a planned early delivery.” I pointed out that, say, cancer tended to involve far less predictability than she described. “It’s a medical wisdom thing. You try your best,” the doctor replied.
Medical wisdom thing? What does that even mean? I have no idea. Another stunningly stupid comment from “Doctor” – I have no idea how the pill works -McMillian.
In-Vitro Fertilization:
“If you harvest 10 eggs and you implant three and you throw away the other seven, you’re aborting seven children. You’re aborting seven humans. You’re killing seven humans. So do it the right way and don’t kill children.”
If you’re looking for the cure for cancer or other diseases don’t look to Mississippi. They’re just not that into science.
Tags: Abortion, Birth Control, IVF, Mississippi, Personhood Amendment
Very Good
Very good as in Mississippi’s Personhood Amendment is good, or… very good post?
So you can fertilize a dish of 500 eggs, throw ’em in the freezer, and claim them all as tax deductions?
This is absolutely horrifying.
Ya know, i may have SLIGHT amount of sympathy for these conservatives if I thought they really cared about human life….. but their goal of controlling women is so transparent.
If they really cared about human life, they would first mount a campaign to save ALREADY BORN sick and starving children. next, they would fight to improve the adoption and foster system in this country…. they would guarantee that from the minute you are born, YOUR COUNTRY (are you paying attention david? i said YOUR COUNTRY not your gumment) is going to make sure that you can get treatment for sickness, education, and a safe place to live. Women struggling with CHOICES would be able to know that if the chose to give birth to a baby they tried not to get pregnant with, they would be able to give that baby the best chance for a good life. Make it so there are many more CHOICES.
But i have yet to see any conservative show any compassion or even care about any human once it is born. Damn the mother’s health, damn what kind of house the kid grows up in, damn giving them ANY ASSISTANCE AT ALL!!! just force it to happen and move on. That is the conservative message….. if it isnt, that is what you people project.
You rail on and on about how people should be left ot make their own decisions and how ever their life turns out is their own choosing, but instead you punish women for having sex. (presumable because it wasn’t with you)
Why is there never any responsibility for men? ejaculating without the intention of fertilizing an egg is wasting potential human life. why isn’t masturbation reckless endangerment?
Get ’em a photo ID and you can cart them off to the voting booth.
As bad as this idea may be, I think they’re honestly rooted in their convictions. I think they honestly do believe that life begins at conception.
That being said, why not let this go to the Supreme Court and have it out? I don’t think it would even become law in Mississippi, it would just go straight to DC, yes?
Rooted in their convictions so lying is okay? Facts be damned. They have no understanding of basic biology.
Frankly, I’m sick of conservative’s beliefs.
Once again, allowing this law to go into effect will prove incredibly damaging to the anti-abortion movement.
BTW, Mississippi has the No. 1 rate of infant mortality in the US. So at least they have their priorities straight — save the unwanted pregnancies, ignore the wanted ones.
One problem with those from Mississippi, is they are unfortunate in that they require a larger portion of their brain devoted just to the spelling of their state name correctly. Californians,… only have one letter less, so that helps explain them too….
american conservatism is rooted in christianity, which is a missionary religion…. not to say that it is bland and boring and unsatisfying for the women (although that is debatable)…… it means they have to go out and get people to believe what they believe if they want to be saved. apply that to the GOPTP and you can understand why it’s “ok for them” to force the beliefs of a few on the many, but its NOT ok to implement majority held ideas (health care for all) if a couple people object. It is about control through morality… THEIR morality. In their morality, men run things and women have babies. If women are allowed to have power without babies, satan wins.
It’s a little bit more than that.
Conservatism is defined as looking backwards. Progressivism is defined as looking forwards…
Del Dem and I are both Conservatives; we just both looked back fondly upon the Clinton Era, when life was good, and like every conservative, argued a return to the “good old days”…
Our conservatism does not sit well with the liberalism or progressivism of those who look to a Brave New World future, where government is limited, and corporations can do what every they wish. That bold new progressive untried future is risky, and full of risks… and will take a strong corporate liberal, to get us there.
What this was all about, was convince all readers that conservatism is simply harkening back to ones past… It is an emotional activity; one that is not grounded on fact. Ironically, it is when facts counteract what one believes emotionally, the emotions run high, and often run over fact and reality and make absurd conjectures, because not to, would mean that ones emotional basis, our sense of self and how we see the world, is incorrect…
Psychologically, none of us can be incorrect. We have to find a defense to prove it…
Simply put… these people putting this bill forth, are arguing, life was good growing up. Our mom’s didn’t have legal abortion (they had illegal abortions lol) so let’s return to those times again…
The best way to counter that argument is to agree and twist.
You’re right. times were better then…. because our parents stayed together. Lets outlaw divorce and look the other way any time a spouse cheats, and that we’ll create an environment where all babies born can come into a loving family ….
Let’s do that first, and if it stops abortions, then we can make fetus’s a legal entity…..
“Divorce Illegal in Mississippi…. Mandated by Republicans… “
people who wish for the good old days of their youth….. especially aging boomers, forget that they are wishing for a return to unequal rights, jim crow, the draft… the list goes on. They dont remember it because they were children. People born and aware BEFORE the depression…… policies that many “conservatives” want to return to, are all almost gone. people who remember what this country was like when there were no protections for workers and consumers, seniors, children.
I don’t think this can stand US Constitutional muster even w/ the Roberts’ court.
Mississippi is also considering declaring the value of pi to be “3” in an attempt to raise test scores of Mississippi students.
Again, I think the people behind this are motivated by the believe that life starts at conception, not some conspiracy to keep women down. And the notion that women have to chose between having children or having a career is false and demeaning.
And the notion that the only choices women might have are between having children or having a career is false and patronizing and utterly clueless.
Whether or not these people are motivated by their beliefs isn’t the question. The question is whether or not their completely wrong beliefs should govern the lives of other women.
And let’s remind ourselves that we are talking about people who aren’t too far long from regarding people of color as not quite human. So you’ll forgive us if we don’t think that their judgments in this business are credible.
Do these people support sex ed in schools? Available/affordable birth control? If they really wanted fewer abortions they would embrace these options, but they don’t.
And show me where they focus on, or punish, the “father.” Did you notice how he’s completely missing.
One more thing… I don’t care what they believe. They don’t get to insist everyone “believes” what they do – even tho they really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really believe it.
Having lost in all other ways the forces of anti choice now seek to replay the game with thier latest “idea”. It’s more of a marketing ploy as redefining human life at the state level should be a very hard sell in all but the most backward areas of the country, hence Mississippi shall lead the charge.It’s also a fine wasting of tax payer dollars in states that can ill afford to waste a penny.
Here’s the text of the proposed amendment It looks like abortion would fall under first-degree pre-meditated murder, probably aggravated since it involves a child, and invoking the death penalty for the mother and all accomplices.
I’m sure that’s not what the advocates have in mind, but I don’t see any language that gets around it.
Wow. Looks that way to me as well, puck. Maybe Mississippi could burn women at the stake. Too much?
All accomplices? Do you think that would include the father? Or just the woman and doctor?
Whatever the rules are for determining accomplices for a murder. I guess whoever paid the bill or drove to the clinic would count as well. What if you drive and pay for your friend to have an abortion out of state? There would have to be a wholesale review of the criminal law.
Oh my. What a mess.
You have to remember this about our conservative brethren, anyway to make this happen is a good way, lying, cheating , it doesn’t matter. because they really really…………believe it , the path to victory don’t matter , all that matters are the results. -G
I kinda went a little overboard with the reallys.
If blastocysts are people, can we have the unwanted ones arrested for trespassing? Perhaps the ectopic ones can be arrested for attempted murder. Isn’t it ironic that the same people who scream about big government want to have a huge intrusive government examining women’s periods? Aren’t all women potential murders every month until menopause?
Mr. Pandora asks: After the next census will we be reapportioning representative districts based on blastocysts?
Why stop at conception? That girl in college who turned me down when I asked her out? Murderess. My DNA warriors were all lined up and ready to go, but they died in agony. Millions of ’em. Never had a chance.
LOL! Puck wins!
The sane people of Colorado have voted this down twice – in 2008 and 2010 by 3-1 margins. Then again, we all know where Mississippi ranks when it comes to education and sanity.
Amanda Marcotte on how such laws have played out in Mexico:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2011/10/28/what_does_personhood_for_fertilized_eggs_look_like_in_practice_.html
Pro-lifers never think things through. They would burn down their house to get rid of termites and never consider they’d have no place to live.