The Republican tactic of distraction through social issues is very effective, because they threaten real right of real people. Republicans are now adopting a concept they call “personhood”, which translates into an attempt to undo a women’s reproductive rights, not only outlawing abortion, but also many forms of birth control as well. On November 8, Mississippi voters will decide a personhood amendment.
A ballot measure going before voters in Mississippi on Nov. 8 would define the term “person” in the State Constitution to include fertilized human eggs and grant to fertilized eggs the legal rights and protections that apply to people. It is among the most extreme assaults in the push to end women’s reproductive rights.
The aim is to redefine abortion and some of the most widely used forms of contraception as murder, obliterating a woman’s right to make childbearing decisions under the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.
Besides outlawing all abortions, with no exceptions for rape or incest or when a woman’s life is in danger, and banning any contraception that may prevent implantation of a fertilized egg, including birth control pills, the amendment carries many implications, some quite serious.
It could curtail medical research involving embryos, shutter fertility clinics and put doctors in legal jeopardy for providing needed medical care that might endanger a pregnancy. Pregnant women also could become subject to criminal prosecution. A fertilized egg might be eligible to inherit money or be counted when drawing voting districts by population. Because a multitude of laws use the terms “person” or “people,” there would be no shortage of unintended consequences… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <NY Times>
Personally I oppose abortion, but I still fully support a woman’s right to make her own decisions about her own body, because I do not have the right to impose that on anyone else. In addition, I recognize that there are times, when a woman has no ideal choices available.
Rachel Maddow covered this story in depth and interviewed activist Cristin Hemmings.
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Romney will probably switch positions back and forth several times, and where he might end up is anyone’s guess.
This is clearly unconstitutional, but that might not matter to the fascist five.
The bottom line is that Republicans have no respect for women’s rights. And for the Republican Party life is worthy of protection only from conception until birth.
16 Responses to “Personhood”
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Do they have any idea what this would do to our already over-populated Earth?
I know. They just don’t care. More children means more slave labor for their factories once they abolish all the regulations.
They don’t care, as long as they can strip their rights the second they are born.
Guess which state is the poorest in the US, has the highest number of teen births, is next to the bottom in producing high school graduates and is the most religious. You’ve got it – Missi-sloppy – the armpit of the country.
The one associated with mud.
Mississippi is also not to be left out as one of the bigger farming states that feeds the rest of the nation. It also has some top private schools, some of the top police officers and fire fighters, where other states travel to attend our specialized training. So before we bash and entire state lets look at the entire state and what it offers. Yes, we do have over weight problems but have you ever ate the southern foods we have down here??? Our recipes are nationally known and people come to MS and the rest of the south for vacations and to eat!!! We have low test results in some public schools, but we also have some high results in a lot of our public schools as well as the private schools we have. We are in the heart of the football nation with nationally ranked teams worthy of competing with schools all around the nation.
Because we as a state has been given the opportunity to vote on a incentive measure that is going to be going to about 5 other states within the next year or two, shouldn’t be a slam on Mississippi or any other state.
Sounds like someone is just blowing wasted air out of their mouth and don’t know anything about a state other than the few bad things seen on tv or in writing…….
How about you worry about your state and be ready to vote on this incentive if it comes to whatever state you live in!!
Welcome Jonathan. 🙂
I’m sure most of what you have said about Mississippi is true, as was most of what Leslie said also. There are good and bad aspects of every state. However, if Mississippi voters pass this amendment, and Haley Barbour voted for it today, your people will earn the title “The Coat Hanger State.”
The medical community has been quite united in stating that pregnancy does NOT begin until implantation. So no matter how happy they seem …
… these are NOT chickens.
I’ve said it before, but I think it bears repeating: A zygote is no more a person, than an acorn is an oak!
Sadly, that won’t matter to SCROTUS.
The far right has waged war on women for generations- this comes down to a hatred and fear of women , Nothing more can tell a woman her place than to take away all right to control her body– Losing that very important right would place us all in another ‘dark age’– It is really that simple I think– this is not to limit abortion rights — it is to control women , prevent women from making the most basic health decisions- –I am not discussing the rightness or wrongness of abortion ; which is a moral decision , but the complexity of this atrocity that Miss. would but into place.-
The bottom line is that Republicans have no respect for women’s rights. And for the Republican Party life is worthy of protection only from conception until birth. (from the article)
Exactly!
It is quite apparent that the state of Mississippi has the lowest level of highschool graduates if this is the kind of ill conceived legislation that they put forth. It is totally lacking in any common sense or for considerations as to how it might affect or be affected by other existing legislation. It totally disrespects women and their right to have or not have children. Before you know it, women will be locked in little cages to pop out babies as are done with laying hens.
The right wingnuts are at it again, trying to play God. First, someone tell me how they can outlaw the pill when it is taken, as I understand, to prevent the fertilisation of an egg ie before conception?
A state with one of the lowest education rates, one of the highest teen prgnancy rates, one of the poorest states , and they want women and girls to be nothing more than baby factories? And when these children can’t be fed properly, or clothed, or have no incentive to do well in school because a constantly pregnant mother seems to do ok, what then? Do they start on a life of crime to get what they want? And this month the 7th billion person will added to the planet, a planet that based on the way things are now, cannot sustain that level of population. But I guess the federal Republicans have that one worked out — go to war so that the military industrial complex can rake in their billions and pay the bribes to the politicians, and then there is this cheap cannon fodder to actually do the fighting.
I am not in favour of abortion for myself, but I will not stand in the way of another woman doing what she feels is right for her. I have done and will continue to support any woman who comes to me for advice on the matter and chooses abortion. It is amazing that these so called holier than thou idiots are the same ones that blithely sign a death warrant for a convicted felon.
OK, end of rant for now.
Lynn, that position is identical to mine.
What will they do if a woman has a spontaneous abortion AKA miscarriage? Will she go on trial for murder too? I’ve lived in MS and those people do not think like the rest of the nation. Ignorance is bliss and God help you if you are liberal. They have none of the easy “live and let live” of their neighbor Louisiana.
Blue, that could easily happen is some prosecutor sees an opportunity to advance his career through persecuting prosecuting her.
An embryo or fetus is not a separate person until it IS separate. That is until it is outside of a woman’s body.
No matter what they try to call it, no human being has the right to inhabit the body of another person against that person’s will. Think of it. If a person requires one of your kidneys to live and you are the only match, do you have to donate one of your kidneys? What if that person is your own child? How about donating a pint of blood to keep someone alive? You don’t have to donate ANY body substance to anyone. In fact you don’t even have to stop to see if a person lying on the street just needs you to call an ambulance. Another person, who may be in deadly trouble, cannot require you to even pause on their behalf. While you may want to do all of these things, the law does not require these body or even time donations of you.
So why do these mostly men think a woman MUST donate her body substance, to breath for, eat for, carry, go through labor for, and actually create a human being? That is the question here. It takes nine months to create a person. Women do it. Men cannot. Women use their own substance and the minute bit of substance given to them to create another person. Regardless of its genetic makeup, as long as her body is the sole support system, whatever substance is in her body is the womans’ own substance. So call the embryo or fetus a separate person but it is obviously not separate and not a person.
How did this male dominated society manage to call separate something that isn’t separate?: How did this male dominated society manage to invent a male god and ascribe creationism to him? How did this male dominated society manage to deny the power women have not just to create by her own very great effort not just a physical person, but to continue to support that new individuals’ life support needs and conferring language, comprehension and understanding through the many years of childhood? And yes this process goes on a lifetime.
Only men with VERY limited life experience could be so blind as to want to force a woman to create children when they do not want to or cannot due to life circumstances. Only men who have a degrading view of sex could want to punish women for their creative role. That is why these proposals are coming from the Catholic dominated states. These pompous old men who have forsaken any real relationship to women are deciding for the rest of us that women (not men) must be punished for sex and so must bear “their burden.” The quality of people produced as punishment cannot help but be tragically lacking in the unconditional love a child requires to grow into a healthy, happy adult. The kind of society resulting from forced reproduction is just what you would expect, an unsupportive, stupid, punishment-oriented warrior society.
Welcome Cheriel! 🙂
I appreciate your anger. The big irony here is that the primary purveyors of this insanity are Republican supply-side pseudo-Christians, when the Bible is clear that a fetus and a person are different.
If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. [Exodus 21:22, KJV].
In Exodus, the penalty for killing a person is always death, but the passage calls the fetus her “fruit” and exacts a fine.