Along with Ohio's SB5 referendum vote in Ohio today…..is Mississippi's referendum vote on "fetal personhood." Voters in Mississippi today will be deciding whether they believe all fertilized human eggs are, in fact, "persons"…and thus entitled to all the protections guaranteed to all other U.S."persons."
Of course, this Mississippi referendum has nothing to do with granting personhood rights to fertilized human eggs…it has to do with denying all Mississippi women the right to choose their own reproductive lives. Ending abortion….that's what the poor southern state is putting to a vote today.
As with Ohio's Issue 3, if Mississippian's "personhood" referendum passes, it will not become the law of the United States and, most likely, will not become effective law even in Mississippi because of the court battles which will surely follow. But that could be the goal of radicalized forced-pregnancy conservatives in Mississippi. Even though Roe v Wade forces no female citizen to choose abortion, forced-pregnancy enthusiasts in Mississippi would force all pregnant women, whether they wanted to bear a child or not, to have no other choice.
To stimulate a bit of discussion on the "forced pregnancy" movement in Mississippi….I encourage you to read this short piece.
Hullabaloo's David Atkins sets forward 4 group-think examples which seek to encompass where the "passion" behind the forced pregnancy lobby comes from..
1) A small minority of the forced pregnancy movement are….
..seriously hardcore misogynists who want women to be little more than vessels to carry babies. This is actually a fairly small minority of the movement, but these are the folks who are against not only abortion, but birth control and abortion even in cases of rape or incest. These people would still be branding women with scarlet letters if they had the chance. The abortion issue isn't about babies for them. It's about controlling women and sexuality.
2) Pregnancy as punishment for having sex….a variation on #1…
The pro-punishment crowd that sees sex as inherently evil and carries around a softer version of the first group's misogyny.
3) The Christian conservatives who actually believe a god breathes a soul into every fertilized human egg at…fertilization.
The actual Bible-thumper crowd. A lot of these people obviously overlap with groups 1 and 2, but there is a segment of people who are legitimately convinced that all these little eggs and fetuses are imbued with a soul by the magic Creator, and that there is an unsung massacre ongoing everyday on a par with the Nazi Holocaust.
4) Those who are only following their leaders or role model figures…
…follow along with whatever their "pro-life" pastor, youth group leader or similar charlatan says is the right thing to believe. They don't have strong convictions about these things, but everyone else in their social group seems to have anti-choice beliefs, so they might as well, too.
Atkins goes on to explain what science has to say about this "a fertilized human egg is a person" issue….remember science?
This is what we know: During the period of embryonic development that begins with fertilization and ends with successful implantation, about 50 percent of human conceptions fail to survive. The main reason for this high failure rate is the inability of huge numbers of fertilized eggs to implant.
Either "god" is…well….similar to Hitler…or perhaps a fertilized human egg alone….does not qualify as a person.
Mississippi Governor Barbour has already voiced some concerns about the state's forced pregnancy referendum,….and he's certainly no liberal. Other conservatives have as well.
Let's hope voters in Mississippi pause to reflect on what they are really voting for…..they are voting to force women, against their legal will, to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.
