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.