Mississippi
Planned Parenthood Consultant tell-all packed with lies to Mississippi voters
A Huffington Post article titled “How to Defeat PersonhoodUSA”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-stanford/personhood-mississippi_b_1191443.html spilled the beans yesterday by printing a laundry list of lies from Planned Parenthood to Mississippi voters – all the while claiming that these lies were part of “honest conversations.” The article, an obvious puff piece for Planned Parenthood Consultant Sarah Flowers, railed against Personhood Amendments nationwide.
From the article: “Husbands, said Flowers, had another reaction that dealt with ‘the condom part. In some cases, men would make the association that no birth control pills mean condoms or no sex.’”
Is Sarah actually admitting that they allowed men to believe that condoms would be outlawed by the Personhood Amendment? Worse, that some men believed that banning chemical abortions could somehow equal zero contraception whatsoever, leading to forced abstinence? These are scare tactics at their worst. Granted, it’s not a bad thing to recognize where babies come from, but just imagine your average hard-working Christian man in Mississippi. He’s married, and suddenly told that if Amendment 26 passes, he might be locked out of the bedroom. When Personhood groups encountered false impressions among voters, we set them straight. No surprise, it looks as if Planned Parenthood didn’t bother to do the same – in fact, it appears they were more than willing to propagate false information to voters.
These kinds of lies are insidious – specifically tailored and targeted to vulnerable audiences, including prolife Mississippi voters. Planned Parenthood certainly did their homework on which deceptions would most affect Mississippi voters, and then they went to town. Funded almost entirely by out of state Planned Parenthood groups, No on 26 did more than just talk to voters – they lied to them. http://www.personhoodusa.com/press-release/new-poll-reveals-real-reason-...
It gets worse. The article continues,
“While conservative voters approached personhood as an abortion issue, conversations got them thinking about their lives. Doctors worried about committing a crime if they didn’t know whether an unconscious patient was pregnant…This issue brings out a lot of protectiveness that fathers feel toward their daughters and husbands feel for their wives,’ said Flowers who cited a nightmarish list of what-ifs that included detached placentas and ectopic pregnancies. These men did not want the criminal code to prevent doctors from saving the lives of their daughters and wives.’ “
Apparently, writer Stanford failed to do his research, and Planned Parenthood Consultant Flowers deliberately lied to voters with her “nightmarish list of what-ifs”. In Mississippi in particular, there wasn’t even a question of doctors being at risk, as Mississippi law already exempts physicians from being prosecuted in cases of ectopic pregnancy or if they were to “prescribe a medication fatal to an unborn baby to treat a female patient whose pregnancy was unknown and was not reasonably discoverable.”
Mississippi laws directly prohibits criminal charges against Doctors who don’t know whether an unconscious patient is pregnant. Why, then, did Planned Parenthood tell Mississippi voters that their lives would be in danger? That their doctors would be in danger? Even demonstrably false statements from Planned Parenthood are being printed and published with no consequences.
The article goes on to imply that it was Personhood USA who decided that life begins at fertilization. While we would be thrilled to have brilliant bioethicists and embryologists on staff, alas, we cannot take credit for the scientific standard of when life begins. The issue of when life begins is not a personal choice, or a moral consideration – it is absolute scientific fact.
I have long known that abortion industry mega-giant Planned Parenthood is in the business of protecting their pockets by any means necessary – and with the power of millions of our tax dollars behind them. But I certainly never expected a tell-all in the Huffington Post – after all, admitting that you’re using my tax dollars to deceive people is pretty gutsy. Abortion supporters must be pretty comfortable in their untouchable status to declare war on truth in such a terrible way.
The Abortion Industry disrespects women in many ways, all of them deceitful. It claims that women are not capable of pregnancy or raising children amidst difficult circumstances. It claims that the child in their womb is not a child, but tissue or “product”. I could go on and on. Now, it seems, Planned Parenthood is reveling in its deliberate dissemination of scare tactics and outright lies, claiming that it was all part of “having honest conversations with voters.”
It will always be a difficult battle to take on a billion-dollar abortion machine like Planned Parenthood. While they may be able to outspend us, we have truth on our side and are absolutely determined that the real honest conversations with voters will be led by Personhood Mississippi. Knowing that it was lies that defeated us only makes us stronger, because such a defeat can only be temporary. In the days and weeks following the Mississippi Personhood campaign, both Personhood Mississippi and Personhood USA have grown exponentially, which we believe is due in part to angry Mississippians who have discovered that they were lied to by Planned Parenthood, and due wholly to God’s blessing on a movement to protect every single human person, in the womb or out of it, regardless of their age, race, size, location, or circumstances of their conception.
Jennifer Mason
Personhood USA
Loss steels resolve in ‘personhood’ movement
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/4/loss-steels-resolve-in-pe…
Anti-abortion activists ‘ready to press forward’
By Cheryl Wetzstein
The Washington Times
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Story Topics
Social Issues Jennifer Mason Les Riley Personhood Usa Personhood MississippiThe Nov. 8 defeat of the “personhood” amendment in Mississippi is galvanizing supporters to have a do-over in the state and also push measures in Colorado, Virginia and at least eight other states, say leaders of the anti-abortion movement.
“I can tell you that we are going to press forward. … We’ve got plans to continue a massive grass-roots campaign,” as well as work with the legislature, said Les Riley, leader of Personhood Mississippi.
“We realize we are changing a culture, and we can’t expect to change the culture with one election. That’s why we are willing to do this as many times as it takes,” said Jennifer Mason, spokeswoman for Personhood USA, which supports coast-to-coast measures seeking to establish human rights at conception.
Petition drives for personhood measures are taking shape or are under way in California, Colorado, Florida, Montana, Nevada, Ohio and Oregon. In addition, lawmakers in Wisconsin and Virginia have introduced personhood legislation, while lawmakers in Georgia have announced plans to do so.
Those amendments will likely face fierce opposition from pro-choice groups — and some pro-life groups.
“Right-wing extremists intend to put so-called ‘personhood’ amendments on as many state ballots as they can,” the National Organization for Women said in a recent year-end fundraising appeal to supporters.
“Enactment of the so-called ‘Personhood’ Amendment to the Wisconsin state constitution is a threat to the protection of Wisconsin unborn children,” Wisconsin Right to Life said after a group of lawmakers introduced a personhood bill last month.
To many pro-life leaders, however, personhood is the battleground of the 21st century.
Emerging issues such as cloning, embryo experimentation and euthanasia necessitate ensuring the right to life for human beings, “womb to tomb,” say personhood supporters such as Georgia Right to Life President Daniel Becker.
“The pro-life movement must mature beyond the singular goal of ‘saving babies’ and engage our current ‘culture of death,’ ” Mr. Becker wrote in his book on personhood this year. “Personhood is the means.”
The stunning defeat of Mississippi’s Amendment 26 — 58 percent of voters rejected it although it was expected to pass handily in the strongly pro-life state — revealed numerous campaign weaknesses.
Personhood Mississippi polled about 10,000 people after the vote, Mr. Riley said. Surprisingly, the biggest reason people voted “no” on personhood was fear that it would prevent infertile couples from using in-vitro fertilization (IVF) to have a baby. Another big fear was that a personhood amendment would prevent pregnant women from getting lifesaving medical treatment.
Those and other fears were advanced by media campaigns, billboards and materials distributed by opponents of Amendment 26 — Mississippians for Healthy Families collected more than $1 million, mostly from Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its chapters, to defeat the amendment.
After the vote, though, a lot of people felt they were deceived, Mr. Riley said. Many have called to say they regret voting no and say, “I want to help you next time,”he said.
The Colorado amendment for 2012 reflects some lessons learned: It clarifies that “only birth control that kills a person” and “only in-vitro fertilization and assisted reproduction that kills a person” would be affected by the amendment and that it does not prevent medical treatment for life-threatening conditions such as cancer, ectopic pregnancies and placenta previa.
“We think that by including a little more information to prohibit our opposition from using these scare tactics will benefit us, while easing voters’ minds,” said Mrs. Mason, who is married to Personhood USA President Keith Mason.
The Colorado amendment’s new language “is an obvious effort to address some of the weaknesses in past proposals and be more clear about what the intent is,” said Clarke Forsythe, senior counsel at Americans United for Life, which, he said, takes a “state-by-state” approach on whether to support personhood amendments.
But such detail surely will open the Colorado personhood campaign to political debates on each of those points, he said. “It won’t be just an abortion issue; it will be an IVF issue. … You will have a campaign on every subsection of it.”
Mrs. Mason is undeterred, saying she thinks young Americans are ready to push forward with personhood.
“I feel like my [baby boomer] parents’ generation had time to change Roe v. Wade and fight against it, and nothing happened,” she said. “Believe me, we have the most volunteers of any pro-life group in the country. And most of these volunteers are young people who want to see a change.”
New Poll Reveals Real Reason Behind Mississippi Personhood Loss
Following the defeat of Personhood Amendment 26, Personhood Mississippi commissioned a post-election poll to determine what factors influenced voters. Surprisingly, the poll determined that only 8% of those who voted “no” did so because they are pro-choice.
The nation has watched the Mississippi election closely, and there has been much speculation as to what may have caused the unanticipated defeat. Proponents were repeatedly quoted as saying that the amendment could not ban in vitro fertilization, contraception, or healthcare for women. Their statements were correlated by the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, along with many other prominent Mississippi attorneys, doctors, and politicians.
Yet, despite these expert statements and testimonies as to the effects of Amendment 26, Planned Parenthood (under the guise of Mississippians for Healthy Families), persisted in lying to Mississippi voters, propagating scare tactics that were proven false numerous times. As of October 31, with well over a week to go before the election, they reported a hefty $1,030,000 poured into Mississippi from out of state Planned Parenthood affiliates alone.
“Planned Parenthood pulled the wool over the eyes of Mississippians, and I believe that voters will be shocked to learn the truth,” commented Les Riley, founder of Personhood Mississippi and sponsor of the initiative. “They must have been desperate to lie about so many things so often. But beyond the lies, it’s terrible to know that they likely used my own tax dollars to lie to the people of my state. Planned Parenthood reports over $350 million in government funding, and it appears they used well over a million of their government dollars to lie to people in Mississippi.”
The new poll reveals that Planned Parenthood’s willful deceit, which also raised doubts in the mind of Governor Haley Barbour, caused the defeat of Amendment 26.
Governor Barbour previously stated that he had concerns about the amendment, all of which were the same issues that Planned Parenthood used to deceive voters. Barbour did vote “yes” on the amendment, yet even after he announced that he had voted “yes” Planned Parenthood persisted in running television ads and telephone calls misleading voters to believe he had voted “no.” As a result, 12% of voters polled said that they were swayed to vote “no” by Haley Barbour.
Among the most shocking, 31% voted “no” because they thought it would ban in vitro fertilization, a direct lie from the Planned Parenthood camp.
28% of voters polled voted "no" because they believed the Planned Parenthood lie that women would be denied treatment for ectopic pregnancy.
“My family and I invested years of work into this amendment, only to have the largest abortion provider in the country invade Mississippi with their anti-family rhetoric,” continued Riley. “Knowing that Mississippi voted ‘no’ because of lies from our opponents makes me more determined than ever to try again, defending the rights of all Mississippians.”
Only 24 people out of 10,000 polled voted “no” because there were no exceptions for rape and incest, indicating that most voters understand that the human being in the womb is a person, no matter the circumstances of their conception.
As election approaches, 'personhood' debate continues
http://www.wmctv.com/story/15971698/as-election-approaches-personhood-de…
As election approaches, ‘personhood’ debate continues
SOUTHAVEN, MS – (WMC-TV) – In two days, Mississippi voters will go to the polls for the state’s General Election. With the clock ticking, a monumental ballot measure is still up for debate.
Initiative 26 says, “The term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof,” meaning that the destruction of human embryos would be outlawed.
The measure on Mississippi’s General Election ballot Tuesday has been the focus of rallies, town hall meetings and national debate. Fellow Republicans even put Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour to the fire, after he said he is for the initiative, but voiced safety concerns.
“I am concerned about some of the ramifications on in-vitro fertilization and ectopic pregnancies,” said Barbour.
After that comment on MSNBC’s Daily Rundown, Barbour later reiterated his position.
“I think the right thing to do was to vote for it, which I did this afternoon,” said Barbour Thursday.
Barbour is not the only Mississippian trying to fully grasp the measure. This critical vote will alter the state constitution, set future precedence for Mississippi law and impact the medical industry.
The amendment would ban abortions, including pregnancies from rape or incest. It would also outlaw birth control that causes pregnancy termination, such as “morning after” pills. It would not affect daily oral contraceptives, such as “the pill.”
Embryos created in laboratories could not be destroyed, and embryos taken from women who want to have a future child could not be frozen.
The Mississippi Center for Public Policy released a legal analysis saying physicians would still be, exempt from prosecution for terminating an ectopic pregnancy or accidental homicide of an unborn person.
For Mississippi citizens, the debate is personal.
“We’re fighting for the preservation of the unborn in the State of Mississippi, and we feel like that is a cause worth our strongest efforts and our most committed prayers and our untiring labors,” said Live Action Executive Director Brad Pruitt.
“I oppose this because, as a woman living in Mississippi, I know what’s best for me and my reproductive health,” said Mississippi resident Michelle Colon. “I’m an adult woman. I’m a taxpayer. I’m a citizen of this state and I know what’s best for me and my body.”
The polls are open from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Tuesday. In addition to the General Election, Mississippians will also vote in the special election to fill the remainder of Senator Jack Gordon’s term.
To read the constitutional amendments, click here.
'Personhood' effort still alive after Miss. defeat - Associated Press
by EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS – Associated Press | AP – 3 mins 53 secs ago
* Adam Browne, right and his wife Debbie Browne, hold signs supporting a proposed amendment to the Mississippi state constitution on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011 in Jackson, Miss. Mississippi voters were asked Tuesday whether life begins at conception, a state constitutional amendment with a chance of becoming the first victory for the so-called personhood movement that aims to make abortion illegal. If approved, the initiative will almost certainly bring legal challenges because it is at odds with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade decision that gave women the right to an abortion. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis) Adam Browne, right and his wife Debbie Browne, hold signs supporting a proposed amendment …JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Abortion opponents say they’re still pursuing life-at-fertilization ballot initiatives in six other states even though voters in the Bible Belt state of Mississippi rejected the conservative measure.
Abortion rights supporters praised the vote, saying the measure went too far because it would have made common forms of birth control illegal and would have forced women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term.
The White House called it a victory for women and families.
“The president believes that extreme amendments like this would do real damage to a woman’s constitutional right to make her own health care decisions, including some very personal decisions on contraception and family planning,” President Barack Obama’s spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement.
If it had passed, the “personhood” proposal was intended to prompt a legal challenge to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a legal right to abortion. A Colorado-based group, Personhood USA, is trying to get the measure on 2012 ballots in Florida, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Nevada and California.
Voters in Colorado have already rejected similar proposals in 2008 and 2010. Keith Mason, a co-founder of the group, said they might try again in Mississippi, too.
“It’s not because the people are not pro-life,” Mason said of the failed ballot measure. “It’s because Planned Parenthood put a lot of misconceptions and lies in front of folks and created a lot of confusion.”
Planned Parenthood Federation of America said in a statement that Mississippi voters rejected the amendment because they understood it was government going too far.
The measure “would have allowed government to have control over personal decisions that should be left up to a woman, her family, her doctor and her faith, including keeping a woman with a life-threatening pregnancy from getting the care she needs, and criminalizing everything from abortion to common forms of birth control such as the pill and the IUD (the intrauterine device).”
The so-called personhood initiative was rejected by more than 55 percent of Mississippi voters, falling far short of the threshold needed for it to be enacted.
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.
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.
Opponents also said supporters were trying to impose their religious beliefs on others by forcing women to carry unwanted pregnancies, including those caused by rape or incest.
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.
Buddy Hairston, 39, took his 8-year-old triplets to a precinct outside Jackson to hold signs supporting the initiative.
“Unborn children are being killed on a daily basis in our state and country, and it’s urgent that we protect them,” said Hairston, a forestry consultant.
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.
The state’s largest Christian denomination, the Mississippi Baptist Convention, backed the proposal through its lobbying arm, the Christian Action Commission.
“We mourn with heaven tonight over the loss of Initiative 26, which would have provided the hope of life for thousands of God’s unborn babies in Mississippi,” said the commission’s director, the Rev. Jimmy Porter. “Instead the unborn in Mississippi will continue to be led down on a path of destruction to horrible deaths both inside their mothers and in laboratories.”
The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi and the Mississippi bishop of the United Methodist Church opposed the initiative.
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.
Personhood USA Commentary Following Amendment 26 Vote
Today, Mississippi voters have decided not to pass the Mississippi Personhood Amendment.
Personhood USA understands that changing a culture—and changing a country—will not happen with one election, and so it is not unexpected. We thank the over one quarter of a million Mississippians who voted for Amendment 26. We vow to continue on this path towards affirming the basic dignity and human rights of all people because we are assured that it is the right thing to do, and we are prepared for a long journey.
Abortion is the greatest injustice of our day. Children are brutally dismembered and killed in their mother’s womb at the rate of over 3,000 per day. Abortion clinics are strategically located across the country.
State by state, and election by election, we are taking critical steps towards defending the right to life of all human beings, every person, and ending the dangerous and deadly practice of abortion. The time has come for America to stop treating the unborn as property to be disposed of as we see fit. We are thankful that lives were saved and hearts were changed through the Yes on 26 campaign, and we are prepared to do it again in multiple states across the nation.
Personhood USA firmly believes that our campaign fell victim to the outright lies of our opposition, and because of their lies, children will continue to be murdered in Mississippi.
Amendment 26 enjoyed the widest, broadest base of support that this country has ever seen on a pro-life amendment. This alone demonstrates that the tide is turning in America. Politicians, doctors, nurses, lawyers, scientists, and ethicists are fearless in standing for human life, and for the rights of all people, regardless of age, race, development, gender, disability, or location.
Our opposition’s most successful tactics were steeped in falsehoods. Despite testimony from countless experts including the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, numerous high-profile attorneys, and board certified physicians and OBGYNs, Amendment 26 opponents falsely claimed that the measure would ban in vitro fertilization (it couldn’t), ban contraception (it wouldn’t), and give protections to “eggs” (it didn’t).
In truth, Amendment 26 protected human embryos from the moment of conception.
However, Amendment 26 would do much more than that. Amendment 26 would protect all human beings by recognizing their personhood rights. Most abortion providers refuse to perform abortions until 8 weeks—when the baby is clearly recognizable and has tiny fingers and toes, complete with a strong and steady heartbeat. Amendment 26 was for those living and growing babies, newly conceived. Amendment 26 was for the 3 week old babies with beating hearts. Amendment 26 was for the 8 week babies with fingers and toes. Amendment 26 was for those babies at 18 weeks, kicking their moms for the first time, at 26 weeks opening their eyes for the first time, and even in the third trimester, when abortion is still legal thanks to 1973’s Doe v. Bolton decision.
Amendment 26 was for the mothers scarred by abortion. Abortion is permanent—you can never undo it. Amendment 26 was for fathers, sisters, brothers, and grandparents who are all terribly affected by abortion, past or present.
A personhood amendment, recognizing everyone as a legal person, is the right thing to do. It is always right to protect our citizens. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The time is always right to do what is right.”
We recognize that the right time to end abortion in Mississippi is now, and that is why the citizens of Mississippi will attempt a personhood ballot measure again—and again, if necessary—until every person’s life is protected.
Personhood USA is committed to seeing that every child is protected by love and by law in the United States.
Rival abortion groups watch Mississippi vote closely - Reuters
Reuters) –
By Verna Gates
JACKSON, Miss (Reuters) – Anti-abortion and women’s rights groups were watching Mississippi closely on Tuesday to see if voters there approved a constitutional amendment that could effectively make that state’s abortion laws the strictest in the country.
If the so-called “personhood amendment” passes, Mississippi would be the first U.S. state to define a fertilized egg as a person, a controversial concept aimed at outlawing abortion, some types of birth control and infertility methods that result in the loss of embryos.
Polls closed in Mississippi at 7 p.m. local time but it was too early for significant results.
Passage of the amendment would open a new front in the political and legal battles over abortion in the United States, and could embolden abortion opponents’ efforts to get similar measures passed in other states.
Supporters of the ballot initiative hope it is the first step toward overturning Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. The measure seeks to ban abortion without exceptions for rape or incest victims.
“To be human is enough to have rights, and those rights should be in the law,” said Personhood USA founder Keith Mason, who rallied voters in Mississippi on Tuesday to approve the amendment.
Critics of the measure said it could criminalize routine medical care and endanger women’s lives.
“It is the most radical measure in a year in which there have been a slew of radical anti-choice laws,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York.
Election officials said a slate of ballot initiatives in Mississippi helped drive a robust voter turnout, and the passion on both sides of the personhood issue was evident at the polls.
For some voters, the decision hinged solely on their beliefs about abortion, while others grappled with the broader effects of the amendment. There is dispute over the extent to which birth control and in-vitro fertilization options would be limited.
“I work in healthcare and have had my own personal challenges with reproductive issues. Those issues should be between a husband and wife,” said Felicia Denson, 35, after voting against the measure at a church in a Jackson, Mississippi, suburb.
“I am pro life and against abortion, but this law was just too vague.”
Farrah Newman, an ophthalmologist who is seven months pregnant with her third child, said she voted in favor of the amendment.
“I am a mother and a female and a physician and a Christian,” she said. “I have researched this and found nothing strong enough to negate my conviction that someone is a person at conception.”
(Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Greg McCune)
© Copyright 2011, Reuters
Miss. Voters Asked If Life Begins at Conception - Associated Press / ABC
By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS Associated Press
JACKSON, Miss. November 9, 2011 (AP)
Mississippi voters were asked Tuesday whether life begins at conception, a state constitutional amendment with a chance of becoming the first victory for the so-called personhood movement that aims to make abortion illegal.
If approved, the initiative will almost certainly bring legal challenges because it is at odds with the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision that gave women the right to an abortion. The measure divided the medical and religious communities in this Bible Belt state and caused some of the most ardent abortion opponents, including Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, to waver with their support.
Opponents said the measure could make birth control, such as the morning-after pill or the intrauterine device, illegal. It could also deter 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 state constitutional amendment defines 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.
Americans in state, city votes; Ohio, Mississippi focus - Reuters
By Mary Wisniewski
COLUMBUS, Ohio
COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) – Voters around the United States cast ballots on Tuesday in local and state elections, including ballot initiatives in Ohio to curb union power and in Mississippi that could outlaw abortion, governors races in Kentucky and Mississippi, and big-city mayoral contests.
The elections were the last before voters go to the polls early next year in various state primaries and caucuses to pick a Republican challenger to face President Barack Obama, a Democrat, in the November 2012 presidential contest.
One closely watched ballot initiative is in Mississippi, where voters are asked to decide whether human life begins at conception, the so-called “personhood amendment” to the state constitution.
If it passes, Mississippi would be the first U.S. state to define a fertilized egg as a person, a controversial concept aimed at outlawing abortion, some types of birth control and infertility methods that result in the loss of embryos.
This would open a new front in the political and legal battles over abortion in the United States, and could embolden abortion opponents to try to pass such measures in other states.
Governors will be chosen in Kentucky and Mississippi. There are elections for mayors in eight of the nation’s largest 25 cities including Houston, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Phoenix.
Ohio, a key swing state won by President Barack Obama in the 2008 election, has a closely watched vote over the power of organized labor, which suffered setbacks this year in Wisconsin and other states.
Voters will decide whether to overturn a law that would severely restrict the collective bargaining rights of public sector unions in the state.
GOOD TURNOUT
The weather in such major Ohio cities as Columbus and Cincinnati was fine, which should help turnout, poll watchers said.
Kathi Schear, an election official in the Columbus neighborhood of Clintonville, said she has worked 11 elections, including the last presidential vote, and had never seen turnout as high as on Tuesday morning.
In Cincinnati, Mayor Mark Mallory visited polling places to greet voters and encourage them to vote to reject the law, a centerpiece of Republican Governor John Kasich’s legislative agenda.
It passed the Republican-dominated assembly in the spring. But opponents were able to gather 1.3 million signatures to halt its enactment and put it on the ballot for repeal.
“The weather is great. Hopefully the stars are aligning. There seems to be a buzz in the community about the issue,” Mallory said. “I think people know it’s a horrible attack on unions and hopefully the people of Ohio will turn it back.”
A Quinnipiac University poll showed that as of late October, nearly 6 out of 10 Ohio voters surveyed wanted the law repealed.
While massive protests in Wisconsin earlier this year grabbed national attention, Ohio is more important to unions. It has 360,000 public sector union members and the fifth largest number of total union members in the country, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
We Are Ohio, a group opposing the law, has raised $19 million, according to the Ohio Secretary of State, versus $7.6 million raised for supporters. Money has poured into television ads, and thousands of volunteers on both sides have worked phone banks and gone door to door to get out the vote.
PASSIONATE ISSUE IN MISSISSIPPI
In Mississippi, the anti-abortion personhood amendment drew passionate reactions from voters on both sides of the issue.
“I voted for it,” said Lillie Graham, a 56-year-old mother of four children in Meridian, Mississippi.
“No one should take a life like that. When you conceive, you conceive,” she said.
Jackson resident Michelle Colon, 38, said she helped organize grassroots efforts against the proposed constitutional amendment.
“The anti-choice people lied and hoodwinked the voters,” she said. “We organized to get the truth out about this. They did not tell the people how far-reaching it would be.”
Political analysts also are expected to watch closely contests for state legislature seats in Virginia and Iowa. Republicans are trying to win a majority of seats in the Virginia Senate, which would be a bad sign for Obama, who won Virginia in 2008 and hopes to do so again in 2012.
A special election for an Iowa state Senate seat could change the balance of power there and encourage Republicans to try to overturn the state’s approval of same sex marriage.
An Arizona lawmaker who championed the state’s tough crackdown on illegal immigration last year faces a recall election.
(Additional reporting by Corrie MacLaggan, Patricia Zengerle, Colleen Jenkins, Verna Gates, Ian Simpson. Kay Henderson and Lauren Keiper; Editing by Eric Beech and Jerry Norton)
In Mississippi ‘personhood’ initiative, principles vs. details - The Washington Post On Faith
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/in-mississippi-personh…
by richard land
There has been much heat generated by the debate over the state of Mississippi’s proposed ballot Initiative 26-the Personhood Amendment. This ballot initiative would amend Mississippi’s constitution “to define the word ‘person’ or ‘persons’, as those terms are used in Article III of the state constitution, to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.”
The ballot initiative’s opponents raised all manner of objections of the “what if” or “does this mean” variety such as, “What if a mother has an ectopic pregnancy, would the doctor be charged with homicide for aborting such a life-threatening pregnancy?” Or, “Does this mean that a doctor who performs radiation therapy on a cancer patient could be charged with criminal conduct for killing the embryo through such treatment?” According to the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, the answer is no. They note such incidences are already covered by current Mississippi criminal statutes.
However, such questions completely miss the point of this ballot initiative. These questions and objections focus on the details and the individual incidences when embryos may be destroyed. The ballot initiative focuses on the basic moral principle that embryos are unique, never to be duplicated human beings from the moment of fertilization onward and that civilized societies do not allow them to be dismembered and destroyed at will.
Several years ago CBS aired a special program, The Body Human, where they apparently forgot to be politically correct and stated the scientific truth, “The sperm enters the egg and life begins.” The ballot initiative puts forth the basic proposition that the protections of the law should be extended to Mississippi’s pre-born citizens. I am in 100 percent agreement with this proposition. Once that bedrock moral principle has been established, then you address the details of individual situations according to existing moral law. When necessary, you write new laws to interpret the new constitutional principles that Mississippians have asserted in passing this ballot initiative.
I do not know anyone who is arguing for charges of homicide or murder to be filed against doctors who perform abortions or who destroy embryos in the process of performing in vitro fertilization. I would certainly oppose such a perspective. You would need overwhelming societal consensus that abortion is murder before you would consider passing such laws. Taking another person’s life can lead to charges of homicide or negligent homicide, voluntary or involuntary manslaughter, death by misadventure, etc., precisely because the charges depend on both the societal moral consensus and the details of each case.
The primary goal and intent of the ballot initiative is to save unborn babies’ lives from the wholesale slaughter they are currently being subjected to in Mississippi, by extending to them the protections of the law. The impetus behind this initiative has never been to punish abortion providers or mothers, but to stop the wholesale killing of babies. I, for one, look upon a mother of an aborted child as a second victim and would strenuously oppose any attempts to charge mothers with any crime. Down the road, under new potential laws, in the case of abortion providers I would probably start with a substantial fine and a loss of any medical license they may hold, with the fine escalating significantly for recurring offenses and at some point permanent forfeiture of licensure, and only as a last resort incarceration.
