crazyheart
Mississippi Personhood Ammendment.
Posted on: 11/09/2011 14:09
Mississippi's "Personhood Amendment" fails at poll
Christi Chandler, left, and Stacy Hawsey, both of Madison and supporters of the Personhood Amendment promote their initiative as they waver signs at drivers in the midst of last minute campaigning Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011 in Madison, Miss. (AP Photo)
(CBS/AP)
JACKSON, Miss. - Mississippi voters Tuesday defeated a ballot initiative that would've declared life begins at fertilization, a proposal that supporters sought in the Bible Belt state as a way to prompt a legal challenge to abortion rights nationwide.
The so-called "personhood" initiative was rejected by more than 55 percent of voters, falling far short of the threshold needed for it to be enacted. If it had passed, it was virtually assured of drawing legal challenges because it conflicts with the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a legal right to abortion. Supporters of the initiative wanted to provoke a lawsuit to challenge the landmark ruling.
The measure divided the medical and religious communities and caused some of the most ardent abortion opponents, including Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, to waver with their support.
CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston reported earlier that the vote could set a precedent for the nation. The major concern for many regarding the strict law and new anti-abortion tactic was its possible affect on fertility treatments, especially for people like Atlee and Greg Breland.
"When I was 28-years-old, Greg and I were diagnosed with infertility," Atlee said. They used in vitro fertilization to conceive their 5-year-old twin girls. Atlee had worried the proposed state constitutional amendment could limit fertility treatments for other Mississippi couples.
"I don't want Mississippians to have to go Washington, D.C. or New York or California to have infertility treatment," she said.
Opponents said the measure would have made birth control, such as the morning-after pill or the intrauterine device, illegal. More specifically, the ballot measure called for abortion to be prohibited "from the moment of fertilization" — wording that opponents suggested would have deterred physicians from performing in vitro fertilization because they would fear criminal charges if an embryo doesn't survive.
Supporters were trying to impose their religious beliefs on others by forcing women to carry unwanted pregnancies, including those caused by rape or incest, opponents said.
Amy Brunson voted against the measure, in part because she has been raped. She also has friends and family that had children through in vitro fertilization and she was worried this would end that process.
"The lines are so unclear on what may or may not happen. I think there are circumstances beyond everybody's control that can't be regulated through an amendment," said Brunson, a 36-year-old dog trainer and theater production assistant from Jackson.
Hubert Hoover, a cabinet maker and construction worker, voted for the amendment.
"I figure you can't be half for something, so if you're against abortion you should be for this. You've either got to be wholly for something or wholly against it," said Hoover, 71, who lives in a Jackson suburb.
Mississippi already has tough abortion regulations and only one clinic where the procedures are performed, making it a fitting venue for a national movement to get abortion bans into state constitutions.
Keith Mason, co-founder of the group Personhood USA, which pushed the Mississippi ballot measure, has said a win would send shockwaves around the country. The Colorado-based group is trying to put similar initiatives on 2012 ballots in Florida, Montana, Ohio and Oregon. Voters in Colorado rejected similar proposals in 2008 and 2010.
Barbour, long considered a 2012 presidential candidate before he ruled out a run this year, said a week ago that he was undecided. A day later, he voted absentee for the amendment, but said he struggled with his support.
"Some very strongly pro-life people have raised questions about the ambiguity and about the actual consequences — whether there are unforeseen, unintended consequences. And I'll have to say that I have heard those concerns and they give me some pause," Barbour said last week.
Barbour was prevented from seeking re-election because of term limits. The Democrat and Republican candidates vying to replace him both supported the abortion measure.
Specifically, the proposed state constitutional amendment would've defined a person "to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof."
The state's largest Christian denomination, the Mississippi Baptist Convention, backed the proposal through its lobbying arm.
The bishops of the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi and the General Conference of the United Methodist Church opposed it.
Bishop Joseph Latino of the Catholic Diocese of Jackson, a church traditionally against abortion, issued a statement neither supporting nor opposing the initiative. The Mississippi State Medical Association took a similar step, while other medical groups opposed it.
Mississippi already requires parental or judicial consent for any minor to get an abortion, mandatory in-person counseling and a 24-hour wait before any woman can terminate a pregnancy.
Comments
crazyheart
Posted on: 11/09/2011 14:10
Sorry It s so long. I couldnt seem to edit it.
What did you think about this ammendment and were you surprised that it was defeated?
Dcn. Jae
Posted on: 11/09/2011 17:31
I am disappointed.
sighsnootles
Posted on: 11/09/2011 17:37
well, if it can't pass in mississippi, then its pretty much done.
NEXT.
SG
Posted on: 11/09/2011 17:51
I am very pleased that it did not pass. This was a very poor attempt at abortion legislation. It made no room for rape or incest. It also would have outlawed many forms of birth control and called into question the legality of IVF (fertilized eggs are routinely discarded). Many anti-abortionists thought this bill would have brought the law to the Supreme Court and actually resulted in a strengthening of Roe v. Wade.
InannaWhimsey
Posted on: 11/09/2011 18:28
The anti-choice movement is still alive and hungry. Bless those with the schmarts, the drive, the ability and the means to keep them in check.
EDIT: it'll be interesting to see if the US develops a Federal Society that is a representative democracy where being a franchised member means you have to get a license to use your brain.
chansen
Posted on: 11/09/2011 20:53
Just one more small victory over those who would impose a twisted, biblically-based morality on the rest of us if they could only get their way.
chemgal
Posted on: 11/10/2011 12:02
I'm also glad it didn't pass. Does Mississippi have laws regarding treatment of the deceased? Wouldn't passing this cause a lost chemical pregnancy to result in human remains? Technically, many women who didn't even know they were pregnant (even most doctors wouldn't call that a true pregnancy) could be charged for improper treatment of human remains (or so I assume). There's just way too many problems with the proposed ammendment.
AaronMcGallegos
Posted on: 11/10/2011 12:17
<Hi CrazyHeart, I cleaned up the opening post a little. Hope that's ok!>
SG
Posted on: 11/10/2011 12:30
chemgal,
This, should it have passed, would have come into play with birth control, IVF, miscarriage....
Mississippi has one abortion clinic in the whole state.
Mississippi is also BTW a capital punishment state -so much for personhood and the right to life.
crazyheart
Posted on: 11/10/2011 12:33
Thank you Aaron, you can clean up for me any time.
chansen
Posted on: 11/10/2011 12:44
chemgal,
This, should it have passed, would have come into play with birth control, IVF, miscarriage....
Mississippi has one abortion clinic in the whole state.
Mississippi is also BTW a capital punishment state -so much for personhood and the right to life.
Didn't you know that "life" begins at orgasm, but ends at birth?
SG
Posted on: 11/10/2011 15:26
Amen, chansen.
We have Life lingering in poverty.
Life is being denied adequate housing.
Life is being denied access to clean water and sewage.
Life is at risk from rampant TB and suicide rates.
Life is being denied an education.
Life is being denied aid.
Life is being denied a living wage.
Life is being denied medical care.
Life is sacrificed on battle fields.
Life lays in a hallway without a hospital bed.
Life cannot get a place in transitional or subsidized housing or into a nursing home.
Life is, in places like the US, being snuffed out by the state.
Ask aboriginal children here in Canada how much Canadians care about babies.
Pro-life should mean more than supporting life in utero.
jon71
Posted on: 11/13/2011 20:31
well, if it can't pass in mississippi, then its pretty much done.
NEXT.
Amen! I believe you are exactly right. There are few if any states more red than Mississippi.
jon71
Posted on: 11/13/2011 20:34
Just one more small victory over those who would impose a twisted, biblically-based morality on the rest of us if they could only get their way.
Statistics I've seen show that Christians tend to be pro-choice, pro-gay rights, etc. is roughly equal numbers with everyone else. I certainly count myself as a pro-choice Christian.
BetteTheRed
Posted on: 11/13/2011 21:07
There's a raging battle against women's reproductive rights being waged by conservatives, largely men, across the U.S.
Too many babies cry themselves to sleep of hunger at night. We should be worried about them.
chansen
Posted on: 11/13/2011 21:53
Just one more small victory over those who would impose a twisted, biblically-based morality on the rest of us if they could only get their way.
Statistics I've seen show that Christians tend to be pro-choice, pro-gay rights, etc. is roughly equal numbers with everyone else.
On what planet?
Motheroffive
Posted on: 11/13/2011 23:10
Thank you Aaron, you can clean up for me any time.
<Just a little side conversation, ch - if you are having trouble with pasting something here that seems to have a mind of its own, it may still have some code with it that could interfere with your formatting. The trick that works for me in getting rid of this stuff is to paste whatever I've copied into a program on your computer called notepad or something equivalent if you're on a Mac. Then, copy it from the notepad version and paste it here. You will then be free of the formatting and can format it the way that works for you.>
sighsnootles
Posted on: 11/16/2011 08:40
Too many babies cry themselves to sleep of hunger at night. We should be worried about them.
amen.
where is the outcry from the conservatives on THAT one?!?!?!
*crickets*
yep, i thought so.
seeler
Posted on: 11/16/2011 08:52
Just one more small victory over those who would impose a twisted, biblically-based morality on the rest of us if they could only get their way.
Statistics I've seen show that Christians tend to be pro-choice, pro-gay rights, etc. is roughly equal numbers with everyone else.
[/quote]
I suspect that you are right Jon (at least among those Christians and atheists I know), but I have never seen any statistics on the subject.
seeler
Posted on: 11/16/2011 08:55
[[/quote] double post.
SG
Posted on: 11/16/2011 12:56
It was, actually a rather odd initiative because the text of Initiative 26 was
Should the term 'person' be defined to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the equivalent thereof?
Would even those who are pro-life support all it entails?
It would have made disposing of fertilized egss in IVF illegal. Would women be forced to bear all the eggs, like Octomoms? Would they be given away, sold at auction, put in the "baby pool" for any wanting IVF, adopted....? Would IVF become illegal?
What about ectopic pregnancy? Would doctors have to wait until the Fallopian tube ruptures to do anything?
What about IUD's? Birth control pills? Miscarriage?
Would all the fertilized eggs rejected by the uterus be a crime? Would women with hostile uteruses be criminals?
See this is starts with the fertilized egg, not even an embryo.
Now, since all blastocysts, embryos, fetuses would be classified as a full citizen of the state... Welfare benefits? Health care? They could be "wards of the state".
Every person, "citizen", who dies is determined to have died of "natural causes" or some kind of "homocide", would we do such investigations? Is every menstrual cycle a crime scene?
Colorado tried an amendement similiarly worded very in 2010 and also in 2010 the Iowa Personhood Initiative wanted eggs to be "persons", not fertilized eggs, just eggs.
I think that people need to think hard about what "person" means and what "citizen" entails and not simply say "I am anti-abortion, to me it is a person, so this makes sense"