Personhood Ballot Measure Rejected in Mississippi

I voted no

The fertilized egg vote never materialized.

For whatever reason, personhood amendments seems to be the bright line that shan’t be crossed, at least for now. Such an amendment went down to defeat twice in Colorado.

Guess all those fertilized eggs didn’t make it to the voting booth today.

Yeah, making every miscarriage into a murder investigation?  So glad this didn’t pass.

I cannot even express how stoked I am about this. I recently moved away from MS, and am frankly a little astounded that 26 didn’t pass. I think the realization that it would affect IVF and outlaw IUD’s was a huge motivator in getting people to oppose this initiative. If only 27 had gone down in flames, as well… Racism is still alive and well in the South.

Good job Mississippi voters!

I was pleased to see the recent change of attitude by Mississippi conservatives on this one. I don’t know what made Barbour completely flip on this one at the last minute, but that had an impact. I was pretty proud of my fellow Mississippians today. That good spirit is dampened, however, when I think about what changed their minds – the fear that it would outlaw IVF. Oh hell no, don’t get in our way of plunking out more knuckle-dragging, cross-eyed hillbillies. Nevermind that a fertilized egg isn’t a person. Somehow it’s fiiiiine with them to destroy those eggs to make more babies, but if you’re destroying just one in order to terminate a pregnancy it’s all of a sudden murder.

It’s misogyny at work on a population that is highly sedated by fast food and heavy propaganda. Though I’m pleased at the result, I don’t have any illusions about an evolution of ideas occurring in Mississippi.

Is it “Life begins?” Or rather “Life continues.”

Life with a capital ‘L’ continues, but a new human life begins.

Like I said, if pro-choicers don’t grant this, they give the pro-life movement an opportunity to make persuasive biological arguments. Better to bite the bullet now than make such a long-term strategic mistake.

The question is: are there? How does Justice Kennedy feel about this?

Except they also fight against birth control, reproductive counciling, and pretty much every other aspect of reproductive choice imaginable.

Meh, it’s still a decent quote.

(I think I dislike his blog even more than you do. The SNR of his site is damned near zero)

Nonsense.

You’re relying on the
colloquial meaning of ‘human’ (the things that separate us from other
animals), and then equating it with having the right number of human
genes. In for a penny, in for a pound as it were. Science just doesn’t
say this at all. It can sequence the gamete’s genes and compare with
human genes, we can test its proteins and analyze its species, but there
is no unambiguous test for this wide meaning of ‘humanity’. We typically
use the word “human” to denote more than just what type of meat something is.

The fertilized cell cannot love, laugh or experience joy. Nor can it
experience pain, discomfort, or anger. It has no plans for the future.
It has no thoughts. It has insufficient neural power for any of these
things. Throughout a healthy pregnancy, many fetuses eventually acquire
this neural power, but the exact moment is imprecise.

Claiming that a new human life begins at conception is a disingenuous use of both “human” and “life”.

A friend of mine did have a burial for the baby she lost at 7 months. Several women do.

Garrett, it’s considered bad form to sockpuppet, well, pretty much everywhere on the internet.  So could you please make Hibernia slightly more believable so that not everyone knows she’s a sockpuppet right out of the gate? “Wow, Garrett, what an amazing insight!” is probably not the best repetetive comment to go with if you’re actually trying to bolster your argument.

I’m so relieved that in Mississippi I still have more rights over my own body than a single celled zygote that might accidentally form there.

It tends to be more common in late stages of pregnancy, at which point many people, even some pro-choicers, consider the fetus to be closer to a human than a clump of cells. It’s around then (thirty weeks, I think) that the average fetus is “independently viable” – i.e. could survive if born prematurely.

What would you think if a friend had a burial for a person who had a burial for a miscarriage after one day?

Having a funeral no matter what stage the pregnancy is certainly understandable.  The feeling of loss is enormous.  I miscarried at 8 weeks, did not have a funeral though I grieved the loss  intensely.  I felt like I was grieving for something I never really had in the first place but still feel an intense pang of loss now even though it’s been over a year. 

A close family member gave birth to and lost a baby at 26 weeks (HELLP syndrome) and had a funeral.  At that point the baby had a gender, a name, and was only a week or 2 at most from having a much better chance being viable outside the womb (though most likely would have had developmental
delays.)

It’s so horrifying to think women could have been investigated and prosecuted for the loss of a pregnancy if this personhood prop had passed.  I don’t think I could have handled such an investigation on top of my intense pain. I already felt such guilt and pain, that I was at least a little unstable.

Most miscarriages actually happen without people ever knowing. Over 20% of all pregnancies are spontaneously miscarried within the first few weeks. Some studies report numbers as high as 50%

I can’t seem to find anything about this 27.  Could you inform me please about what it is, maybe where I can read about it?

I’m not loading the words with any meaning, the word is already loaded with those meanings. 

The fact of the matter is that the only ‘human’ thing about the fertilized egg is that it has the correct number of human genes. The same as a rectal polyp or a flake of skin.

I suspect all the people who run convenience stores figured out that if they sold cigarettes or liquor to a woman who then had a miscarriage, they could be liable.  A lot of prescription and OTC  meds would all but disappear, too.

I was apprehensive about this initiative, but guardedly optimistic.  Voter turnout was heavy, which both pleased me and worried me.  Still, it was not a huge margin, which gives us cause to worry, but a roughly 60-40 split is not too bad for a severely religious state.

We do have a lot of educated people in this state (we have about 8 colleges, not counting 2 year colleges), and I am glad that even though most have to be xtian, they could see the danger this bill represented.    Most people here are not so seriously religious, but then again, far too many can’t carry on a conversation without inserting a comment about  god or Jesus in it. You never know how deep the religious psychosis is.  
 At any rate, I am now pretty confident that they will not stand for most underhanded attempts at circumventing Roe v. Wade. At least unless they are a lot sneakier.  We must remain vigilant.  Now if they could just see that separation of church and state benefits everyone, even them.

Garrett does make some good points. There, am I a sock puppet account now too? Go away with your paranoid nonsense.

Thank you–you beat me to it.  If you support those voter ID laws, then you likely would have supported those laws in the past where you had to pass a literacy test in order to vote.  Whenever someone wants to put a condition on the right to vote, the first thing that needs to be looked into–honestly and not half-assedly–is “will this have an effect of preventing disenfranchised groups from voting?”.  If the answer is even a tiny possibility of “yes”, it should be voted down.

I love how the concern is that the poor or the black are the ones  we need to worry about with voter fraud when it has been demonstrated time and time again that it is the rich and conservative who have been committing the voter fraud.  And getting away with it.  To me, these laws are nothing more than a form of voter fraud and fixing elections–if you erase the votes of the “undesirables” (ie: people who vote Democrat/liberal), you might be found out (however unlikely it is that you will, or that you will be punished for it in any way), but if you can point to them as the “other” and convince the average idiot of the need to protect against these people,  you can get the average idiot to achieve the same goal by voting their rights away–and it’s totally legal!  Hooray!

Exactly that.  What it is in their mind that validates “murder” when it happens in IVF (to a lot more “people” per prengancy as well, if I understand the IVF process correctly) but condemns it when it is an abortion is beyond me.  Okay, so it’s only murder when it’s not furthering your own  goals?  I guess it’s the same kind of mentality that validates real-world murder when it’s done for the “right” reasons, such as godly genocide or gays or the death penalty or that sort of thing.   Or perhaps “The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion” mentality, where it’s only okay if I do it but all other women are whores in need of punishment.

If a woman getting an abortion is a murderer, then you are equally a murderer by doing IVF.  For my own part, I don’t think either one is murder.

 (Though I’m not totally “cool’ with IVF given overpopulation plus lots of abandoned kids needing homes, but I’m not going to outlaw it or bust you over the head with judgment either.  Regardless, it’s still no more murder than abortion is, and I’m nothing if not consistent.)

As I understand the science, an embryo is considered a distinct organism. Unlike, e.g. a flake of skin or a sperm cell.

http://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2
(Disclaimer: I haven’t gone through these quotes to confirm they are accurate and representative.)

Does your presumably pro-choice position rely on embryos not being distinct human organisms? If so, you are likely vulnerable to such scientific attacks. If not, you may want to emphasize other arguments so you don’t seem vulnerable to such attacks.

I accept that embryos are distinct human organisms and oppose treating them with any kind of human rights.  This position completely disarms science-based arguments about the beginning of human life.

No.  No they haven’t.

… What provoked that?  My only point was that if there’s a funeral for a miscarried fetus, it’s far more likely to be later in the pregnancy, when the fetus is much closer to being a person.

It is pretty telling that the rate of abortion amongst pro-choice and pro-life women is approximately the same.  When pro-life women at an abortion provider ask why they are doing it, they say that it is okay they have a good reason, unlike all those other women who are just doing it for convenience.

Since most abortions happen in the early pregnancy, then restrictions on the late term abortions shouldn’t bother you as much. I agree that we should allow a certain amount of options for the pregnant woman about how she wants to care for her pregnancy, but when it comes to late term pregnancies where the baby becomes conscious, we do need some restrictions to make sure that the child is kept alive long enough to be born.

I completely understand the desire to do so.
What I was wondering about is this is what the anti-choosers feel should happen to any miscarriage.

Here’s another pauser – if personhood begins at conception, does the soul enter at that point?  Are souls just going in and out via natural abortion and getting in line for every conception?  Does every egg have a soul in line for it?

Some people who are “pro-life” are not misogynists. Many of them are.

Many people who are “pro-life” aren’t really pro-life either, because they think it acceptable to blow up children on the other side of the world without batting an eyelash. They eat meat. They are pro-death penalty, which is state sanctioned murder.

Many pro-lifers are inconsiderate douche-bags.

I work in a gynecology office that also provides abortion services – we just finished the 40 days campaign where we had protestors “praying” outside our office and “counseling” women away from abortion.

Certainly I don’t care whether a woman carries a pregnancy to term or not – I want her to make the best decision for her – and I will help her access whatever resources and supports she needs to help her live her best life.

The assholes outside my office? They yell at women, women who may already be parents and tell them they are murdering their child. I have had many patients (even those coming to our office for a free pregnancy test or to get birth control, or even a pap smear) be pushed to tears by the insensitivity and malice shown by these inconsiderate people.

Anti-choice laws, such as amendment 26 are absolutely misogynist. They target the half of the population that has the capacity to become pregnant.  There are no equal punishments for men.  Women have the right to decide for themselves whether or not to be pregnant – even if that means using birth control, practicing abstinence, or having an abortion.  If women do decide to carry a pregnancy to term – I believe they should have access to resources to help them have a healthy pregnancy, as well as raise children in a safe, supportive atmosphere.   many “pro-lifers” don’t really give two shits about a child after it is born.

Crisis Pregnancy centers and (some) Christian adoption centers actively coerce women into adoption – telling women their “baby” is a “gift from god” and they shouldn’t murder it – then, once they are almost to term – they tell them they are sinners who are incapable of raising children and that their child would be better raised by this nice christian family. This is an industry that coercively separates willing biological parents
from their offspring, artificially producing “orphans” for Christian
parents to adopt, rather than helping birth parents care for wanted
children.

So yes – In general, I think “pro-life” people are dicks, and yeah, a buttload of them are misogynists.