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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.”
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Take your religious beliefs and practice them in your church and your home. Quit trying to turn your morality into law as if you do, you invite the same from people who think differently. Neither side seems to be tolerant of the other as there is a reasonable middle ground that seems to be completely rejected. If you have waited six months, you can wait another three unless you can get a doctor to agree that your life is in danger. The government should fund efforts to keep the fetuses alive but respect a woman's right to end her pregnancy and pay for that too. The "all or nothing" attitude is destroying our democracy which depends on tolerance.
White Rule the whole reason people are getting upset isn't because the Personhood Initiative cause wants to end with their own state. THEY HAVE STATED THAT THEY WANT TO OVERTURN ROE VS. WADE. This would effect EVERY person in the United States. That's why we are getting our panties in a bunch.
White Rule is the kind of idiot that has been scaring people away from Mississippi for over one hundred years now. We (Mississippi natives) are not all like his inbred azz. Some of us really mean it when we speak of Mississippi hospitality. The Christianist Talibanners like White Rule are going to be shocked when 26 goes down in defeat tomorrow. We are tired of being 49th or 50th in all measures and want positive attention and recognition for a change.
white rule---- I try, I really do.
The Republicans want every child born no matter how they came or at what cost to the Mother
But of course they do not want to support all these children after they are born
They want to do away with Food Stamps, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, early Education, Public Education
What hypocrites they are
If they want to take away the right of the Mother , Father, then they better be ready to support the children
But the case is just the opposite , force the Mother than run away from the kids.
As long as the Great State of Mississipi is ready to take on the added burden of all those children that are going to be mandated to be born, regardless of the mother's (and father's) financial ability to actually raise it without help from Welfare.
Me? Yeah, I'm pro choice. Law says no adult can invade a woman's body without her permission, so why shouldn't she be able to say who resides inside and for just how long?
Dear yourgo, I was graduated from high school in 1968 and 4 out of 5 of the Homecoming court got pregnant and they promptly were absent from school Back then. If a girl got pregnant she was sent to the DePaul home for unwed mothers in Cleveland and the babies were put up for adoption. Even after the birth, they did not return to that school. DePaul is still in town, but nearly empty. As far as parents go, what ever happened to "shame on you" and making sure these girls and boys know the consequences of what they are doing. This personhood thing is so disturbing on so many levels. I have to vote in Ohio tomorrow, and every single vote will be NO. There are only 3 issues on the ballot and every one was written by the Republican controlled Congress. Every single issue is invasive or restrictive.
TAJ,,, That was one great night back in 68' let me tell ya!.. Those girls kept me up all weekend!
Mississippi. the perfect spot for this kind of garbage. Worst public school system in the U.S., highest STD rate, highest teen pregnancy, poorest people and fattest people. Yes, the Republicans in the state of Mississippi have lots to be proud.
Does this mean that in Mississippi a 3 week pregnant woman can use the carpool lane since she has a second "person" in the car with her?
Does this mean that if I have a miscarriage I will be arrested for involuntary manslaughter?
And in the case of an ectopic pregnancy, the choice will have to be the life of the "person" or the life of the mother, which is ironic since the "person" would not be able to survive without the mother, and the only way the mother can survive is to remove the "person"! So does the mother go to jail for murder or will it be considered self-defense?
To California Girl 12345: Don't worry. There is not a carpool lane in the entire state...not in the capital city of Jackson, not on the Gulf Coast (Gulfport/Biloxi metro), not even in Desoto County (surburban Memphis). This is because the Mississippi Taliban has dampened and discouraged in-migration and factory and business development from other parts of the country by continuing to espouse the "ideals" of the Confederacy and such ideas as trying to call an egg a "person".
We have gone from 7 Congressional seats to FOUR in my adult lifetime due to their attitudes. They say to "normal" people from the other 49: "Few doan lackicheer wontcha go summers else."
I apologize for them.
This is again nothing but an attempt to saddle all of us with the bad religion of the provinces. Truly educated people understand that while they may disagree with fertilization and pregancy decisions of their neighbors, THEY HAVE NO LEGAL RIGHT to do a damn thing about it. And, it is doubly sad that the party that apparently cares so little for children after they are born, is all about forcing children to be born against the wishes of the prospective parents.
And you could never enforce such a law, because many medications/chemicals sold at the drugstore can be made into an abortion formula for fetuses less than three to four weeks gestation. The genie is out of the bottle for termination of very young fetuses. Implantation can be prevented simply with large doseages of estrogen. A woman could simply eat alot of chicken necks from unregulated processing plants that will flourish in the next Republican Administration.
This thing may pass in Mississippi. But that is just another strike against it EVERYWHERE ELSE. It is interesting that the super religious people of the South had eugenics laws that permitted sterilization of women they deemed not fit to be parents (many of whom, were surprisingly enough, African American). North Carolina's eugenics law stayed on the books until 2002, according to the article on MSN today.
Well then the republicans would have to start restricting various chemicals and medications to try and stop self-made chemical abortions- we can't punish the public with higher taxes, but we'll punish them for the sake of embryos!
For the doctors abortion is a surgical procedure no deferent that removing cancer. Does anyone want it to be done by old woman with the hook. It only be more barbaric and more primitive. Did anyone look at the life of unwanted human being and his/hers safer through the life. Did anyone count the number of suicides committed by unwanted kids or grown up persons. Why anybody anyway thinks that he/she has any rights to decide for other people what to do in particular situation.
Yeah.....if this comes before the supreme court it could theoretically end the abortion issue once and for all with most restrictions lifted.
Remember, even in a parallel universe where Roe is overturned, that doesn't mean abortion is illegal everywhere, it just means states get to decide what will be legal or not (and only 8 or 9 states have indicated they would ban abortion in that case, so all you do is force a woman to drive an extra 3 hours to one of the majority states that allows it. Whoop-de-doo).
The Supreme Court won't even hear the case... It's already settled law.. Roe vs Wade stands
These are just "frivolous" issues designed as an attempt to get around Roe vs Wade
Do you know how difficult it already is to have an abortion? Driving to another state is an added expense on something that is expensive for many already. I have always supported a woman's right to chose, but every new law attempts to make it more and more difficult for a woman to make that choice. Let's make men jump through a hundred hoops and drive 3 states away to get a little blue pill and make them take counseling before they get their hands on it. They want the right to get it up and get their groove on, but don't want a woman to have the option of terminating their unwanted spawns.
Most women don't want to have abortions and don't use it for birth control, but as a last resort when put into a bad health or financial situation.
Don't forget corporations, they are people too!
celnav:
Jesus surely ordained it. Corporations are indeed persons. As soon as the articles of incorporation are filed. Lest any person try to silence corporations, they shall be given free speech rights. And, axiomatically, money is the same as speech. Render unto Cesar what is his. But render more to the gasbags for the Corporations, for corporations are God's children and they are big, big, fat children. And they must be fat, even if resources must be taken from the lean. People used to speak of the Seven Sisters of the Oil Industry with disdain, but their personification was glorious and must be revered. So it is written. And those that speak for the corporations should be given holy names, like "Americans for Prosperity." Look for a sermon from Michelle Bachmann on the finer points of these commandments. Those that would propose that only people are people are soft sinners that probably support a woman's right to choose if she will allow her womb to swell and be forced involuntarily into motherhood.
so a birth certificate should be issue at time of penetration?
I'm curious what percentage of pro-life people have adopted children...especially, oh, multiracial, special needs handicapped ones. I'm willing to bet its incredibly low. "do as I say..not as I do".
If abortion is murder, then miscarriage is manslaughter. It should be interesting when Mississippi police begin full investigations of every miscarriage in the state.
Life begins at birth.....not conception. Huge difference.
A cluster of cells do not have a "life". They may be "alive"....but so are viruses - and we don't grant them personhood.
Got to admire Mississippi......
Worst in education, health care, state is #1 in obesity, 3rd highest rate of teen pregnancy, poverty with lowest per capita income and they are concerned with the "personhood" of a cell instead of the current population they have.
Hey Ole'Miss lawmakers.........
How about worrying about the folks you already have instead of potential ones?????
If I may: Those people ragging on and on about something that is not their business are for more draconian government control over people. Are they too stupid to see that?
A person is a sovereign being and what he or she does with it's own body is no one elses business.
I see a lot of people with children and how they treat them that should have been sterilized. Can I get some traction on that point? Of course not.
This issue is coming from religious beliefs that have zero to do with governence.
My Father knew you before He placed you into your mother's womb.
Not possible unless you came from a test tube! And even then, you probably never grew up as intended
You haven't changed a bit Jim.
But thanks for the First Amendment, the religion is not the law of the land, which is what makes us different from Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Why should I? -- What you said made no sense at all
Look dude, if you are going to throw out empty meaningless religious phrases someone told you someone said 2,000 years ago that likely heard it from another person who may or may not have said it in the 1st place --- Be prepared for someone with intelligence to rebut you.
I hate to think of the disasters this could create in trying to make sense of this proposed law. For example, if a woman of child-bearing age is murdered, do we now have to examine the body to determine if it contains any fertilized eggs in order to determine whether the murderer has committed multiple murders? What if the body has deteriorated? This whole idea is beyond ridiculous. It doesn't take a very high IQ to understand that a glob of cells with no brain is not a person.
Only if they come from fertilized eggs, at least in Mississippi.
I was watching the Discovery channel the other day and saw a program about the fertilization of a human egg and, according to it, it can take up to 48 hours from the time of intercourse until the fertilization. They should allow the morning after pill.
If it passes, the court should send a summons to the Christian God to come into court and defend the Bill. If He/She/It does not show up, the case should be tossed.
This is just preposterous and another ridiculous agenda of the Republicans - I am questioning being Independent daily the only sane Party at this time is the DEMS.
I person would think that an unborn baby was part of the mother. When I introduce myself to a pregnant woman am I neglect in not including a potential zygote in the conversation? How many babies might think me rude for speaking as if they were not even there?
Seriously, if the republicans of this nation don't get some education soon, we are in big trouble. This ignorant bunch of clod-hoppers are going to run us all into the idiot farm.
Two zygotes walked up to the bar...what'll you have the barkeep says.
I think I'll leave it to the republicans to teach the zygotes how to cross the street. I'm afraid if I try, they'll end up drying out and I'd be up for murder.
I think a zygote should be at least 48 hours old before piano lessons. We can't be pushing the zygotes too hard...let them mature a bit first.
I expect the republicans have a means to get these zygotes to pay taxes? Or are they just growing the non-tax paying base?
Perhaps republicans like the idea of zygotes being people because they don't talk back?
Last entry: How many voting age republicans would it take to have the equivalent thinking ability of one democratic zygote?
James........Thousands!!!
James,
The Republicans have made it clear that everybody should share in the tax load. No freeloaders. So the little squirts will be part of the tax base. Lower the rates and increase the base. It's that simple. Truths like that just jump out at you. But, of course, it will all be revealed in the end.
What if I told you God is a rabbit & He doesn't think much of today's conservatives?
You can ask when you meet Him someday.
MYTHOLOGY, n. The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.
RELIGION, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
This is how conservatives get to feel good about themselves. They feel that they are saving lives which makes them good people. They won't lift a finger to help these babies once they are delivered. Once born however, they call these babies worthless scabs living off of others. The try at every turn to cut their food, health care and education. Pro-birth is the appropriate term. Mammals abort their babies if they do not feel that the environment presents a good opportunity to thrive.
Only one way to deal with this BS....vote every pro-life nut out of office and take back our rights as individuals to have control over our own bodies. If you don't like abortion...don't have one. They even oppose the morning after pill that would keep an egg from fertilizing that would eliminate a vast majority of abortions. They use the Bible as the basis for their debates, yet ignore that entire civilizations; women, men, children, and newborns were murdered on God's command. Your beliefs end where my civil liberties begin...only I(mother of six) can decide when and if I give birth. I almost died having number 5 and was on medication to keep from having a stroke when I found out I was pregnant with number six. Was devastated by the news and my doctor advised that I would not survive the pregnancy. My husband and I chose not to make the attempt that might leave my 4 month, nursing baby motherless. We made an appointment to terminate the pregnancy but changed our minds on the drive to the clinic. We decided to take the chance, even though the doctors believed my heart wouldn't survive more than ten years after the event. I can't imagine not having our last child, she has been a true joy, but we still had the right to that decision. She's almost seven and even though I put my future health at risk, it was my choice. If I found out today that I was pregnant (nearly impossible because of husband's vasectomy) that I was pregnant, I currently have the right and would terminate the pregnancy. No man or government has the right to decide such an intimate choice for my body or my family.
The extent to which this measure would infringe upon my rights and my privacy genuinely frightens me. For women's sake, I hope that Mississippi votes this down.
If I hear hint of similar legislation in Ohio, this softspoken 21-year-old college student is going to become very loud and very feminist. No way in hell will government tell ME what to do with MY body!
Their goal isn't to change Mississippi, they want to overturn Roe Vs. Wade. This is just a lukewarm attempt at putting pressure on the courts to look at things again. So it's already affecting us.