Mississippi defeats "personhood" amendment!

[LAGC]

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi voters Tuesday defeated a ballot initiative that would have declared life begins at fertilization, a proposal that supporters sought in the Bible Belt state as a way to prompt a legal challenge to abortion rights nationwide.

The so-called "personhood" initiative was rejected by more than 55 percent of voters, falling far short of the threshold needed for it to be enacted. 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. Supporters of the initiative wanted to provoke a lawsuit to challenge the landmark ruling.

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.
..
..
(more)

http://news.yahoo.com/miss-defeats-life-fertilization-ballot-prop-041831234.html

WOW, there may be hope for the Deep South yet! The Bible Thumpers are losing their grip down there. This bill would have passed overwhelmingly just 20 years ago. Looks like even the Deep South is becoming more liberal with time... either that, or a good number of fiscal conservatives just don't want to see taxpayer dollars wasted on a futile lawsuit attempt.

What a great victory for women's rights!

[BlueCaliDem]

1. Thanks to the Internet

people are no longer dependent upon pro-GOP propaganda from mainstream news media.

Although there are some paid infiltrants on the more liberal sites, the majority of people of a different political stripe who visit them DO learn the truth that's being obscured by American Corporate Media.

What's happening is what the Powers That Be in this country were most afraid would happen: the electorate is becoming educated, and an educated electorate is an informed electorate, and an informed electorate is bad for the 1%ers and their political lackeys.

[pepperbear]

2. This qualifies as a miracle.

[Leftist4Life]

4. If Mississipi can do it

Then we can do it. We WILL defeat misogyny and backwards anti-choice laws.

There is after all no such thing as "pro-life". It's just conservative orwellian newspeak for "anti-choice".

[Kath1]

3. Yes!!!

Way to go Mississippi voters. This is a real victory for all women!:)

[uppityperson]

5. k&r. Had an odd discussion today with another nurse who was bummed it didn't pass

said she was "pro-life" and that it didn't matter to her having no "save the life of the woman" provision since "someone would die anyway with an abortion". Took me rather aback.

And IUDs cause abortions so those should be illegal also. Being a nurse, took me rather aback.

I'm very glad this didn't pass. Good job.

[Kath1]

6. Wow!

This came from another nurse? Yikes.

I would have been very bummed it it did pass. Good job, I agree.

[HockeyMom]

7. Ask her about a ruptured ectopic

TWO dead. No little baby to save in that situation. That woman should not be in the medical field. but I met nurses like this when I had my ectopic. They were actually MAD that I had a tubal pregancy. Like this was somehow MY fault? DIE because YOU must have done something, and if that embryo can't survive, then you shouldn't either.

Yes, that WAS their attitude.

[uppityperson]

8. I did. There is no moral way to kill a person, even an unborn person.

I then told her that the fetus WOULD die anyway, but still, it would be "wrong".

Extra bonus point: guess what tv station is on when I come to relieve her? She told me she'd switch it off before I came if it bothered me. I told her it bothered me that she watched it.

If you can't survive, then you still shouldn't "kill a baby", slippery slope and all that.

sigh

[HockeyMom]

9. I also "killed" a baby with breastfeeding

I wonder what these smug "Right to Life" nurses would think of this. Maybe god/nature knows more than they do? Despite having only one fallopian tube after my other ruptured, 2 years to the date of that (YES to the date), my younger daughter was born. If I had died, she would never have been born.

She had severe allergies and still does as an adult. When she was 2 months old she got a cold and cut back on her nursing. That month I had a slight staining, but nowhere near like a period. It just so happened that I had a scheduled checkup with my doctor. After my exam, he asked if I had gotten my period back since it appeared from his exam that I might have gotten pregnant. No, not really. He said he thought that I might have ovulated with my daughter not nursing as much, but apparently my uterine lining could not support (no normal period) it and the baby could not implant and was probably expelled in the staining.

Wonder what they would think of THAT? Breastfeeding had "killed" an unborn child. Maybe god/nature was more concerned with the survival of an already born child than with an zygote? That "potential" life had to die, so an already born 2 month old with severe allergies could be nourished with mother's milk?

Try that one on them. Maybe they would want to ban breatfeeding because it might kill the unborn too?

[JimmyS1985]

10. I got banned from a forum for expressing my views.

Im a liberal, and I think its considered a virtue amongst republicans to be as hateful and insensitve to other American's plights as you possibly can. (I.E. booing the gay soldier serving overseas, cheering for an uninsured man to die, setting up a lethal fence along the Mexican border similar to the Berlin wall, etc. etc.)

I was talking on a car forum since I tend to like Japanese cars, and I ran into a guy, who claimed that if a woman gets forcibly raped and pregnant, only the government can make the right decision for her pregnancy which is to birth the rapists child. The woman has no say in her pregnancy after she has been raped, and I assume would be exposed to jail time if she searched for ways to abort the pregnancy anyways.

I found it offensive, so I told the man, "I hope your wife gets raped and pregnant so you can lead by example."

They banned me for 30 days, I guess because it was a comment about his wife, but Id really like to see some of these highly insensitive people in politics to lead by example before making everyone live how they want. Its easy to simply say every woman should be forced to birth their rapists child when #1, they are biologically incapable of getting pregnant, and #2, never have been raped, but until they have been in that position, or a woman very close to them has been in that position, their opinion that government has more say than the woman over a pregnancy in a forcible rape situation, I think is due to a deep hatred for women.

My point is, talk is cheap, if you want to prove to people your political point, live as the person you want to legislate morality over and see if your policy will make life easer, or harder on said person.

I don't believe in legislating morality, Im not an ideologue, Im a realist, I just want to live and let live, letting self-determinism be the guiding hand of fate.