Miss. defeats life at conception ballot initiative

Associated Press ^ | Nov.8, 2011 | EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS

[Free ThinkerNY]

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- Mississippi voters shot down a referendum Tuesday that would have effectively banned abortions in the state, rejecting an initiative that said life begins at conception.

The so-called personhood initiative was rejected by more than 55 percent of voters. 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.

[WXRGina]

The idea that contraceptives, like birth control pills or IUDs, would be made illegal is misinformation. It is not true. That was one of the talking points of the pro-aborts who opposed this ballot initiative here in Mississippi.

Abortions would be illegal, not birth control pills. Abortifacient drugs, like RU486, however, would be illegal, because they acutally kill an unborn baby. Ordinary contraceptives do not.

[Grunthor]

Grunthor’s point which you sadly missed is that Mississippi is already the most restrictive state over abortion in the union and there are actually very few abortions performed there...hence if you can’t get a personhood referendum passed in Mississippi then good luck elsewhere

---

Exactly.

[SorbetCon]

Following conception, the pill prevents a fertilized egg from implanting.

Are you debating that fact? Or are you saying that the fertilized egg would not count as a person yet? Your blanket dismissal as misinformation ignores the text of the amendment and the reality of what the birth control pill does.

[WXRGina]

Perhaps you do not realize that the most commonly used birth control pills are a combination of female hormones (estrogen and progesterone) that prevent ovulation, basically making the body “think” it is pregnant all the time, thus preventing the release of an egg to be fertilized.

I know very well the text of the ballot initiative and amendment—I voted on it yesterday here in Mississippi.

[little jeremiah]

And I still hold that voters should not be given the choice to vote on “when life begins”. It’s like voting about the law of gravity.

The Constitution already describes the right to life, it’s a given. I hope the backers find another way to present this.

[SorbetCon]

The pill does three things.

1) Prevents ovulation most of the time.
2) Thickens cervical mucus which prevents sperm from reaching the egg.
3) Reduces the thickness of the uterus lining which prevents implantation of fertilized eggs.

The pill can fail at steps 1 and 2. Otherwise, pill use would be as effective as abstinence.

The pill does #3. It prevents implantation of a fertilized egg. The morning after pill is essentially a triple dose of regular birth control to do exactly that.

Do you have an example of any hormonal birth control which does NOT reduce the likelihood of the implantation of a fertilized egg?

You seem to be avoiding the point completely that an egg can still be released from the ovaries while a woman is taking the pill. Calling the fertilized egg a person means the pill has the explicit effect of killing that person.

[goat granny]

Thanks for your polite reply. I am all for any law that makes abortion illegal except in the very rare occasion that a womans physical life is in danger, or as I said in my reply in the case that a fetus dies while still in the uterus, but person hood for some means a much more restrictive law that could be construed as anti-contraceptive..I have had such persons reply to me as such. All contrception is wrong according to some and I can see where the Mississippi law could be construed as such by some zealot. On both sides of the coin not all are reasonable...They would condemn even when the physical life of the mother is in danger on one side, and partial birth abortion on the other side...

But some are self-rightous in their stand on being anti contraceptive..I have had them say so in discussions on contraception...a minority maybe but they are out there..and use the term personhood to condemn any contraception. The first time was over a year ago. Thats when I became anti-abortion not pro-life because of what some have said on the subject.

[WXRGina]

I’m not “avoiding” anything. I made the point that not all contraceptives actually kill an embryo, and that is a fact. With the common estrogen-progesterone compounds, you do not ovulate. That is how they are designed to prevent pregnancy. You combined in your 1-2-3 list several different types of contraceptives.

My further MAIN point was denouncing the scare tactics being used by the pro-abort crowd who claimed that “Yes on 26” would outlaw contraceptives, and that is not the truth—bottom line.

[rollo tomasi]

Considering the fact that during a fire, the liquid nitrogen dewars (For starters) would be compromised, thus spoiling the embryos, your strawman makes no sense at all; especially if a lay person was the only person outside the fire.

The layman/woman would save the 10 year old unless you had several dozen females who are sanitized after ovulating for a couple of days, MDs at the ready who are screaming at you in order to retrieve the embryos, and multiple other controlled environmental factors impervious in a situation involving a fire.

[rollo tomasi]

Sorry, did not mean to ping you. Your reference to “The Handmaid’s Tale” was spot on though.

[hopespringseternal]

Which is the functional equivalent of no abortions, no exceptions, and as people realized, would probably be used to try to ban birth control pills as well. And as I've pointed out, very quickly morphs into child welfare social workers, homicide detectives, and coroners poking around people's uteruses and vaginal effusions on demand.

Spoken like a true libertarian extremist. The good news is that no one will ever trust you clowns to run anything. The bad news is you infest the conservative end of the spectrum and discredit it.

[MD Expat in PA]

The problem with the MS “life at conception ballot initiative” was that it was very poorly written from both a legal and ethical standpoint. Putting aside for the moment, abortion or even abortion in the rare cases of rape or incest, the way the proposed law was written, it would have made some forms of birth control like the pill or IUD’s “technically” illegal. It would have also made it “technically” a crime to terminate a tubular pregnancy.

It also could have made every miscarriage as possible grounds for a police investigation.

Not to say that such investigations would take place in every circumstance but the way the initiative was worded, it left it open to be interpreted that way.

Think of a woman who has a natural miscarriage but has a family member such as a hateful MIL who calls the police and claims the mother did something to “cause” the miscarriage. Sure, while quite unlikely, the way the proposed law was written, in such a case, the police would be obligated to investigate as a possible homicide.

Sure the pro-abortion folks tried to scare people with this and that is way overreaching but so was the initiative as written.

I am pro-life but OTOH, I don’t want the police, i.e. the state investigating every miscarriage or tubular pregnancy that some zealot or spiteful person deems to bring to their attention. I don’t want to see pharmacists charged as accessories to murder for filling a prescription for the pill or an IUD.

I was a bad law as written and the best MS can do is now go back and write something better; a more reasonable and legally enforceable law that both protects the unborn but doesn’t potentially criminalize miscarriages and tubular pregnancies that have to, in some cases have to be terminated to save the life of the mother.