E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSBy msnbc.com's Tom Curry
On Tuesday Mississippi voters will decide whether to approve a measure, Initiative 26, that would amend the state constitution to define the word “person” to include every human being “from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.”
On the surface, it would seem to be a favorable advance for the cause of abortion opponents but the nature of the measure has sparked concern among some anti-abortion advocates that the passage of the measure could eventually threaten already-existing abortion restrictions.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, told NBC’s Chuck Todd last week that he believes that life begins at conception but “unfortunately, this personhood amendment doesn’t say that. It says that life begins at fertilization or cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.” He said, “That ambiguity is striking a lot of pro-life people here as concerning.”
Nonetheless Barbour later overcame his misgivings and said he voted for the measure when he cast his absentee ballot in advance of Tuesday. He also complained Friday that a group opposing the ballot measure, “has called people's homes and deceived voters into thinking I'm opposed to Initiative 26, the Personhood Amendment. As I've previously stated, I voted for the Personhood Amendment.”
Opinion: Human rights for fertilized eggs? Initiative at odds with science
Despite his vote, Barbour was articulate in explaining why some anti-abortion advocates think the Mississippi measure is either misguided or may lead to unintended consequences.
He said, “Strategically, there’s some national organizations that think this may mess up trying to get more pro-life policies adopted nationally.”
He also said, “I am concerned about some of the ramifications on in-vitro fertilization (and) ectopic pregnancies, pregnancies outside the uterus in the Fallopian tubes. That concerns me, I have to just say it.”
Jennifer Mason, a spokeswoman for PersonhoodUSA, a Colorado group which is supporting the Mississippi measure, said its proponents “were able to answer his concerns and that’s why he voted for it.” Mason cited a study by a conservative group, the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, which determined that Initiative 26 would not outlaw in vitro fertilization.
A statewide vote has a lot of women in fear over the future of certain forms of birth control. NBC's Than Truong reports.
But, in an opinion piece in the Mississippi Business Journal, Jonathan Will, director of the Mississippi College School of Law’s Bioethics and Health Law Center, who opposes the measure, said “If two out of three pre-embryos are lost in the (in vitro fertilization) process, this would seem to be an unacceptable loss of life. If we are committed to pre-embryonic personhood, we should be committed to banning IVF and other similarly risky fertility treatments until such technologies are safe for all persons (including pre-embryos) involved.”
Prominent conservative lawyer James Bopp, who has argued several abortion and free speech cases before the Supreme Court and is the general counsel for the National Right to Life Committee, said that lower federal courts would be likely to strike down the Mississippi measure, if it were enacted, and that the Supreme Court would likely not review the lower court’s ruling.
But if the high court did agree to hear the case, Bopp said, there is a “very substantial danger” that a majority of the justices would adopt a stronger basis for finding that there is a fundamental right to abortion than the due process rationale Justice Harry Blackmun used in the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
If that were to happen, Bopp said, the current state and federal restrictions on abortion, such as the Hyde amendment banning federal funding of abortions in the Medicaid program, and laws requiring parental notification before a minor get an abortion, would be swept away.
Bopp sketched out his concerns in a widely circulated memo, pointing to the argument that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made in her dissent in Carhart v Gonzales, the 2007 decision in which the justices upheld the federal law banning the procedure known as partial birth abortion.
A constitutional right to abortion, Ginsburg said, ought to “center on a woman’s autonomy to determine her life’s course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature.”
Mason said Personhood USA’s lawyers think Bopp is wrong. “What we’re expecting to happen with the personhood amendment is that abortion will be made illegal in Mississippi. And that is what the pro-life movement has been working for since the passage of Roe v. Wade -- to ensure that all children in the womb have their personhood rights recognized…. This is a definite way to see some actual results.”
A ballot measure similar to that in Mississippi was rejected by Colorado voters in 2010. Proponents of personhood efforts plan to try to get the measure on the ballot in Florida, Ohio, Oregon and Indiana in future elections.
Updating with a comment from Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, staff attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project:
She said the group is hopeful that "voters will reject this attempt to allow government to interfere in the most personal health care decisions of Mississippi’s women and families. However, should the amendment pass, all options are on the table -- including litigation. We will not stand by while thousands of women and families are placed at risk.”
Leave a Comment:
Are all people from the South Religious Nuts ?
Right-wingers already recognize a person named BIG BUSINESS and have granted him/her/it more rights than voters have.
Ever notice with a right-winger they will rant, rave and even kill people over a fetus' right to life, but as soon as a birth certificate is issued the poor kid simply becomes another hungry mouth to starve, keep uneducated and deny affordable health care. Those are some might fine "values" to keep like the sexual harassment value and lie-your-country-into-an-illegal-war value.
Maybe we need a referendum on liars in office and political campaigns. That would immediately eliminate 99.999% of the right-wingers.
The greatest threat this country has ever faced in its history is the right-wing mobs currently masquerading as political parties.
Here we go again; the party that wants small government will always throw the same out when they want government to control people the way THEY want them controlled!
So does this mean that a woman can be charged with negligent homicide if she gets her period? After all, the "unique and special life" of the egg has been cruelly denied the chance to be fertilized.
Let's not forget masterbation...all those little cells.
Never mind in the 1940's in SOUTH CAROLINA we put a 14 year old boy in the electric chair for a murder HE DIDN'T/COULDN'T COMMIT, but please save the cells of life, Oh wait, not a life JUST CELLS that could have saved a life down as HUMAN what is wrong with our GOVERNMENT don't they actually need to work on the budget????
WHERE WERE ALL U PRO-LIFERS When this poor innocent boy was fried????APPAULING
That's why I refer to them as "Pro-birthers" and not "Pro-Lifers"
The GOP cannot win a straight up vote on abortion so now the GOP is trying to get "personhood" amendments on state ballots in order to trick people.
.
This appears to be another attempt to create a statute based on a specific religious belief. Most religions believe humans have souls that survive after the person's demise. Our souls are what make us "special". However, even within the Christian community much disagreement is present as to when the soul enters the body. Since we can't even prove that souls exist we certainly can't say when they enter or exit. My belief, that it enters at the time the first breath is made outside the womb, is supported by biblical writing. This measure is just one more attmept to override my belief with another, that the soul enters at conception, which actually takes place over a period of time.
Bottom line, this measure is about control, both of peoples' beliefs, and of women's decisions and bodies.
This law is so scary that finding myself living in a world that would even CONSIDER this measure, I wish I'D been aborted!
Fertilization of an egg begins the process of a "person under construction".
Birth is the completion of the process with the emergence of an actual "person" and the start of "personhood".
You cannot have any sense of "personhood" until you actually have a real person, which does not occur until birth.
White Rule- aren't you so special that you can bash an opinion when there is next to no consensus on when life begins. We need you as our president!
Um, I am pregnant right now, and you cannot convince me that the life moving around inside me, responding to sound and my movements, is not a living being. They are just as capable of feeling pain as a baby outside the womb. If you believe that a person isn't a person until they are born, then why not legalize late-term abortion? Medical science knows darn well that babies are viable and can feel pain much earlier than at birth, but why bother a woman with this inconvenient truth?
I have children as well and firmly believe that when the fetus can survive on its own, without it's mother, then it is a viable person in it's own right. A fetus that would die if removed is NOT more important than the woman carrying it. Her life needs and wants come first... including her choice to prioritize or terminate the pregnancy.
7 billion people on the planet... we are not a vanishing species and owe a good quality of life to those already here. Spend your time and energy feeding, loving and caring for the millions of unwanted children populating the plane.
Keep your laws off my and my daughter's body! My life, my choice, period.
Catsclaw81 - and abortion is already illegal after the first trimester unless it is to save the mother's life. No one is trying to make abortion legal at all stages. You have made your decision - if you really are pregnant - and if that is the case, I hope you have a happy healthy baby. But, it is based on your life and your choice. You do not have the right to make that choice for others.
Even if this is voted in by the state of Mississippi it will be trumped by Federal Law. However, it gives me the creeps anyway. I could imagine women with embryos being put into special observation so they don't do anything the might kill (through a miscarriage) an embryo or fetus. That's just for starters in terms of creepiness.
Why do conservatives love embryos more than full developed, adult grown women?
Thanks True Patriot for saying it like it is!Â
After 6 children, my mother would have to BEG her doctor for 3 months of birth control. They didn't have that "discuss with your doctor what choice is best for you". I don't want to go backwards...and that is where we are headed!
It is true that crime and poverty fell with a DIRECT correlation to birth control and a women's right to choose.
Dirty politics as usual. The liberal lefties getting their panties in a wad? Clinton got b-j's on America's time, JFK was a nailed anything not "screwed down". LBJ was a dirty old man.. What constitutes sexual harrassment? A woman worth her salt can definitely hold her own in any type of conversation. What a bunch of wussies liberal women are. whine, sniff - he said a bad word to me. I am equal ? say a bad word back and get on with life.
Rose - how fitting that you focus only on the Democrats when the GOP is just as bad but total hypocrites. You clearly have never been in the workforce in any capacity above mail sorter. If you had you would know that we are subjected to harrassment very often by men who are frightened of a strong and capable woman. Too bad your right wingers don't have the intelligence to know what is actually going on and that this effort is only to control women. People like you make it easier for some sick men - and I say some because I've worked with some really great men who would never consider anything inappropriate - to thrive. But then, you probably think degradation is normal.
Personhood, if it's a corporation - they're for it
Personhood, if it's a blastocyst - they're for it
Here's the split
Personhood, if it's a woman of child bearing age - they're against it....
so if less than 1/2 of the minority party are for this than why is it one of the nations top political discussions?
I guess we will now all argue over this pointless proposition and become more divided ...oh I get it
3 out of 4 fertilized eggs do not stick and are naturally flushed out by a woman's body. If they are "people", then any couple that does not successfully conceive in the first month should be arrested for manslaughter.
maybe the govt should start issuing social security #'s to zygotes...and charging chronic male masturbators with murder
ABSOLUTELY ABSURD
To demand a woman bring a fetus to term, then turn your back on her after that child is born and tell her its her problem now, is un-christian.
my opinion on abortion doesn't matter....neither does haley barbours'....or mississippis'....or the federal govts'.....or the church..
you know whose opinion matters? THE PERSON CARRYING THE POTENTIAL FUTURE HUMAN!!!!!!
this topic sends me into orbit every time i hear our govt getting involved with it. hey, d**khead politicians....i think you have enough of your own messes to clean up. maybe when you get ALL of those other messes resolved, then you can jump back into this ridiculous cesspool of a debate....until then....GET BACK TO WORK AND DO SOMETHING THAT ACTUALLY BENEFITS THE COUNTRY!!!! dopes!
We are in more danger from these Religious NUTS than from ANY other terrorist group. We want a smaller, less intrusive government, MY AZZ, they are LIARS!!!!!!!!!
sebrad, best post yet, right on!!!
no surprise that this attempt to protect innocent human life gets the liberal baby killers in a rant.
No surprise a pro-birther comes in and makes a verbal attack on people who are genuinely worried about the enforcement and legal ramifications of a extremely vague statute that can come into conflict with the Constitution and women's rights.
Basically what you are saying is "BABIES: Your argument is invalid".
Why don't you head back to page 1 and school this little libtard by answering my questions on the enforcement of such a statute.
You would prefer motherless children and widowed fathers? So, you would let women die just so the conservative agenda is followed to the letter.
TAJ623251
a strawman argument. Neither myself nor nearly all people who actually respect human life advocate that a woman must be forced to surrender her own life for the sake of bringing a child into the world.
Larry, but you do ask that she give up her womb to your jurisdiction.
Actually Larry there is a grey area- you forget that depending on what jobs women have they might have to stop working if they became pregnant- and if they don't get paid leave- then what? What is a woman is raped and she is forced to have that baby when she doesn't want it? Is that going to be BENEFICIAL to her?
If the fetus and woman are equal and there is a 50/50 probability of survival for both, it will be the doctors via the government who decides who lives and not and not the family or the mother.
So what you are saying is that if the mom's life is in danger it's ok to have a abortion? Why don't you assure us that will be the case and actually put that into the initiative!
Larry....
Killing a baby is called murder. Ceasing the develpoment of a cluster of cells isn't.
Please check your facts. I could have more respect for your opinions if they were based in truths and not outdated fairytales.
To say a cluster of cells is a human being is like saying an acorn is a maple tree.
That cluster of cells is capable of feeling pain. An acorn is not. I am anti-abortion, but I'm also pro-personal responsibility. IF YOU DON'T WANT THE KID, DON'T DO THE DEED IN THE FIRST PLACE! Use protection! Use your head, for crying out loud! The unborn child should not have to suffer a painful end because you were too stupid to protect yourself! Oh, and for the record, an abortion to protect the mother's life is NOT the same as an abortion simply for convenience, so quit using that as an excuse.
inadaze
1 a fall is an accident by definition
2 Doctors almost always investigate the cause of a miscarriage. In part to determine if there is a similar risk in a subsequent pregnancy
3 this is already part of state law in many states
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/03/6/gr030603.html
4 doctors and hospitals should be liable for causing the death of a unborn child
5 it makes common sense to test- or don't you think an expectant mother would like to know if a medication would jeopardize her pregnancy
6 got's lot's of red herrings- if you attempt to commit suicide and while unsuccessful, your effort causes the death of another human being you would be held liable under our current laws in all 50 states
7 so you think that you should make the same kind of decision if your existing 1 year old contracts a debilitating disease? I see no difference
8 beyond stupidity- no doctor who actually adheres to their hipocratic vows would choose one over another.
9 some people get away with murder every year. God will take care of that judgment
10 preventing conception is NOT the same as protecting a human life. Only when a zygote is formed does human life exist
The zygote "...is biologically alive. It fulfills the four criteria needed to establish biological life:
metabolism,
growth,
reaction to stimuli, and
reproduction."
11 the true solution to this problem is for people to value all the unborn as much as the ones they decide to “keep”.
All of your questions really serve to sidestep the real issues on how we value innocent human life.
Your questions show you devalue (as most liberals do) human life unless you can put some kind of monetary exchange in the question.
As a father, grandfather, and a pastor I choose to value all innocent human life as requiring each of us to protect, not cast away as something that interferes with lifestyle choices.
Larry....
Just because a zygote is "biologically alive" doesn't deem it a human being. A virus is alive but it's not a human being. Bacteria is "alive" but it's not something capable of living a life. You are confusing alive with a life.
Your bias and inability to reason logically via science is due in part of your being a religious person. You choose faith over fact. That limits your ability to reason.
This isn't about liberals or religion VS. science.....it about reasonable expectation of ones privacy and control over their body.
Back at Larry- with responses to some of your responses to my questions:
1.) It's now an accident that killed a person. In most states if you accidentally kill someone who can be held criminally liable depending on the situation, or be charged with gross criminal negligence among other things, and once again- you would have to PROVE it wasn't an accident- and for that doctors will not do that- it will be the police who do.
2.) But now it won't be doctors who do the investigating- it will include the police because a death of a human being has occurred- and with so many, MANY reasons why a miscarriage happens you open up the possibility of the police deciding that an accident was really a homicide. No=one in the United states has ever been innocent of crime they didn't commit and got punished for?
3.) Yes I was already aware of that. But now things will change- because it's no longer a fetus but a human being. You're telling me that there won't be an expansion of what is a threat is a unborn fetus? What if a pregnant woman goes on a plane late in pregnancy- that's a risk to the fetus- should she be forced to be house-bound? In some drug addictions going cold turkey could harm or kill the mother depending on the drug dependency- but the drugs to help control withdrawl can still harm a fetus. How are you going to stop smokers and drinkers from doing that during pregnancy? Locking them up?
4.) If Doctors and Hospitals are liable for the death of a person will less actually engage in deliveries or prenatal care? You see in WA state it is lawful in some terminally ill people go get a medical suicide assistance, but in the ENTIRE STATE only 1 doctor will due it, all because of liability issues. And seeing how conservatives are complaining about paying more for their insurance costs for someone else or tax dollars for Medicade- if these costs go up it is a completely relevant question to ask about rising costs due to lawsuits.
5.) My question was about women in GENERAL. Not all women are trying to get pregnant or want to be pregnant when they are. If a fetus is a human and more liabilities emerge- then women of child bearing age would AUTOMATICALLY have to get pregnancy tests for medications to avoid liability for the clinics and physicians. Keep in mind tests are not always accurate, but they could be mandatory.
6.) Glad to hear you'll further punish someone for the misery they tried escaping! Just imagine how many more "temporary insanity" pleas we'll be getting in court. :)
7.) There is a difference in the LAW. Under our current law you can get a non-late term abortion if you knew your baby would suffer it's whole life- with this passing now you cannot. I am talking about knowing of a pre-existing condition BEFORE birth- not after.
8.) Yes they would- the Hippocratic Oath is protect and serve a person. Previously a fetus was not always counted as a person, therefore it was justifiable for a family to decide if it's better to try and save the mother. Now BY LAW they have to take both into account equally- meaning the decision is taken away from the mother and the family.
9.) If people get away with murder and abortion is legal in the law then why are trying to change things? Are you saying we shouldn't use Law Enforcement to PREVENT murders? At what point do we infringe on personal liberties to keep ourselves safe? When will it end if this law begins?
10.) Once again, birth-control is NOT 100% effective. You can still have a fertilized egg form- and the pill can either prevent that egg (which is now a person) from attaching to the uterine wall- and therefore someone dies. If the egg attaches to the uterine wall but the woman does not know she is pregnant she could still miscarry due to the hormones. There is still the possibility of you folks opening the door to banning because of these reasons!
11.) I'm glad to hear that! Therefore all of you pro-birthers should have your churches taxed to pay for the unwanted children and their needs seeing that it's more likely they will be given up to state care or being raised by a mother unable to do it on her own. You should going to protests to improve education for children, health care for children, opportunities for children and take it upon yourselves to see all of those kids get adopted into loving homes instead of rotting away in foster care.
That's right Larry- liberals only care about the monetary value of people. Why is it conservatives spout "life at any costs" for a fetus but decry social programs as un-American? Is it the liberals who are constantly complaining about insurance costs going up or a public funded option for people who are alive right now? Are they saying that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme? Was it the conservatives who decried the war and the loss of life on both sides?
That's right, it's all about money. In reality, it's all about YOU and your religion interfering on the lifestyles who don't think like you.
larry---i'm pro-grass and pro-horticulture. I BELIEVE every time you cut your lawn you are damaging life. I am going to initiate a bill to keep you from harming the individual blades ON YOUR LAWN that I BELIEVE are scared when they hear the lawn mower coming and then IN MY OPINION are senselessly decapitated just so you can be the envy of the neighborhood.
oh, and yes, i do understand grass isn't human....just like a random blob of cells isn't a "person", and therefore can't be "murdered". is an egg a chicken? NO, it's an egg. it could eventually be a chicken, but it's NOT a chicken
Please explain the concept of "personhood" to a cell?
Do you think the cell custer has any idea of it's pending rights? How exactly would this cluster act on it's rights? How would it comunicate it's preference for voting....? What if anything can this cell cluster offer a society in it's present form?
This is absurd. We are supposed to be a race of semi intelligent, reasonable and logical people and yet we want to give "personhood" to something that isn't a person.
Just because something has a potential to become a person....doesn't make it so.
Use logic folks......not fairytales.
There are sooooo many things wrong with the idea of "personhood". If I understand this (I doubt it- I try to be reasonable) that little glob of cells , if those people pass that law, has more rights than the mother. More rights than it's "siblings" (I don't know how to put that in the right tense- they are here- it is not, but then again it is), it's father. The mother should be sacrificed and the father widowed and the other children, if there are any, left without a mother! AND if that poor woman should experience a miscarriage and survives she can be prosecuted for at least manslaughter. Bizarro world, here we come.
WOW- I finally do understand one thing=Truth is stranger than fiction.
No White Rule, the fetus now has EQUAL rights to it's mother- meaning if the mother's life is in danger the doctors, NOT the family get to decide who is better worth saving.
If the law is passed will it mean that coitus interruptus is a pre-meditated act of denying a potential person's existence!?
Mississippi where education takes a back seat to....everything.
www.OneTao.com
White Rule- To me a baby is a little person you can hold and love, what this is about is protecting an embryo that cannot survive outside the uterus. Should it have the right to vote too? How will it have that right without the birth certificate required in many states now? Can the parents vote for it, OH- that is voter fraud! This is about blatant interference with women's health issues. Better to just let women die and suffer while they do it seems to be your attitude.
burkai- Good post
Know the difference between the Republicans and the Tea Party members that are anti-abortion and the Democrats that are anti-abortion? The answer comes in one word, CHOICE!!!
Up next:
Life begins at "You got a condom?"
Republicans get government out of our lives by getting it deeper into our lives.
Go figure.