On Tuesday, the Mississippi Personhood Amendment, which would have amended the Mississippi constitution to define the word “person” or “persons” to “include every human being from the moment of fertilization,” was defeated at the polls by a 58 to 42 percent margin. Accurate polling was somewhat difficult to obtain. However, as recently as a few weeks ago, many Personhood supporters were confident the measure would pass by a substantial margin. The polls tightened dramatically in recent weeks and opponents of Personhood were able to carry their momentum into an Election Day victory.
It is hard to pinpoint what exactly led to this surge in opposition to the Personhood Amendment. Part of it might have been criticisms from former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour. Even though Barbour supported the initiative, the concerns he raised about contraception and potential prosecutions of women with ectopic pregnancies probably raised concerns in the minds of many pro-life voters. Furthermore, the coverage that the Personhood Amendment received from the mainstream media was almost uniformly negative, and abortion-industry operatives spread considerable misinformation about the purported threat personhood posed to contraception.
It is difficult to see where Personhood proponents go from here. Tuesday’s election offered Personhood supporters their best opportunity for electoral success. They qualified a citizen initiative in Mississippi — among the most pro-life states in the country — during a low-turnout election in which Democrats fielded relatively weak statewide candidates. In spite of all this, the Mississippi Personhood Amendment still lost by a double-digit margin. Personhood supporters can rightly claim that they received unfair treatment from the media. However, pro-life proposals will attract negative media coverage wherever they are launched.
There are some lessons to be learned from this. First, many polls consistently show that most Americans are uncomfortable with abortion, but think it should be a legal option in hard-case circumstances such as rape, incest, and life of the mother. Now I, along with many other pro-life activists, think that the unborn deserve legal protection in all situations, regardless of the circumstances surrounding their conception. However, this is not a view shared by most Americans — frustrating though it might be for pro-lifers.
Another lesson is that historically, the initiative process has not been kind to pro-lifers. Pro-life initiatives often do less well than expected, because abortion opponents are typically able to raise and spend more money than pro-lifers. Overall, pro-lifers have not fared well with citizen initiatives. Since Roe v. Wade, the pro-life movement has used the initiative successfully on only four occasions. Public-funding bans were enacted in Colorado and Arkansas in 1984 and 1986. Parental-involvement laws were passed in Colorado and Alaska in 1998 and 2005, respectively. It should be noted that public-funding cutoffs and parental-notice laws are harder to demonize, and enjoy broader support, than personhood measures.
In the aftermath of the Tuesday’s election, Personhood proponents stated their intention to move forward with a revised version of the Personhood Amendment in Mississippi and to pursue Personhood Initiatives in other states. One has to admire their persistence and devotion to the pro-life cause. That having been said, Tuesday’s results should really give supporters of the Personhood strategy pause.
— Michael J. New is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Michigan – Dearborn and a fellow at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, N.J.
Perhaps the greatest refutation of the idea of the rape exception actually came in an episode of Star Trek:Voyager. The first officer of the ship had discovered that a spy had stolen his DNA to impregnate herself. Wondering what to do, he spoke with his father (through a technology-enabled vision quest, but that's just a macguffin). His father stated in no uncertain terms that the crimes were not the fault of the child, and that child should not be punished for them.
To say that a life form which is genetically human (and genetically unique) is anything other than a human life form requires nothing short of willful ignorance. To end the slaughter, we need to shine the light of knowledge and give ignorance no place to hide. Before this is done, any moves will be premature and doomed to failure. After all, there are none so blind as those who will not see.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNot every fertilized egg is human, though, In the case of a molar pregnancy, a fertilized egg becomes a cancerous tumor, not a human. Yet under the language of the Mississippi amendment, that cancer is, in fact, a person.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNewt Gingrich!
(Sorry, couldn't help it.)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNonsense. The deformed ovum that causes a molar pregnancy is not, by any scientific definition, a biological human being, as you note. The *plain text* of this amendment states that it would protect only human beings from the moment of fertilization. Molar pregnancies would be diked out for the woman's sake. (For once, we cannot call her the "mother" in this case, since the molar entity is not her offspring.) Rightly so.
The amendment was well-crafted, but the evidence suggests that the pro-abortion rights crowd never actually read it. Or, where they did read it, they were too anti-science to care about the actual implications.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMichael,
I came into the Mississippi initiative rather late in the game, but what was with all the stuff in there about cloning? I hold the same position as you do regarding abortion, but the cloning language was just jarring. I could very well be in the wrong but I have no idea. And then I thought I read something about some Catholic groups opposing the measure because of the language. Any thoughts?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI was wondering why it took a day for NRO to publish anything on this story.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm still looking for a reaction to the Federal Court of Appeals decision that upheld the Affordable Care Act, a decision "written by a prominent conservative jurist." Funny how that's gone ignored in here.
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Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHappy to see that even in the most conservative of states this ridiculous amendment failed- this is a victory for small government (less intrusion into peoples lives) and less regulation.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNo it isn't - it is an affirmation of the intrusion of the federal govt in the business of the states - whose police power is well defined and much broader.
That the people in Miss were able to vote on the measure is the victory. Whatever they decided is immaterial. Obviously the pro-life advocates had an overly broad proposal, that went beyond what the electorate was willing to accept. Back to the drawing board to see if they can cmoe up with something that would enjoy more support.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Obviously the pro-life advocates had an overly broad proposal, that went beyond what the electorate was willing to accept."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI agree with your statement, JEM. I am pro-life, but have voted against personhood amendments in the past. I too worry that they are overbroad - could it lead to a woman being prosecuted even for legal acts because they might harm the fetus? Especially in early pregnancy, some women aren't even aware that they are pregnant until 2 or 3 months. Smoking and drinking are legal activities, but studies show that they can harm a fetus - would an obviosly pregnant woman be arrested at a bar for having a drink and a smoke? If a woman in early pregancy is involved in a car accident and miscarries, is the other driver now guilty of involuntary manslaughter? Proponents of a law like this can say that they have put language in the bill to protect against that, but once the law is on the books, could a later legislature make these changes?
3D ultrasounds are going to do more to reduce the number of abortions and increase the public's conscience about the morality and rights of individuals than any state constitutional amendment.
We have come a long way in this country since Roe. But like slavery, it is going to take many more years and slow incremental progress to change the culture. These are, after all, people who are being discriminated against because they cannot speak for themselves.
Pro-life groups should be working with hospitals and clinics to cover the costs of 3D ultrasounds for all pregnant women. I still have our 3D picture of our littlest one, and we gasped as we saw her sleeping...she looked just like her older sister and brother. Amazing.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt could be that the MS voters were smart enough to be concerned about all the questionst that the "personhood" proposal entailed.
Great example is Mr. New's blithe dismissal in previous posts of the prospect of women being prosecuted based on the notion that it "never happened" before Roe.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMaking it illegal to treat a ectopic or molar pregnancy, which are NOT going to result in a live birth but, if not treated, WILL kill the mother, is not pro-life, it is anti-woman. If pro-lifers want to convince people that they are not all about the control of women's bodies at the end of the day, they should stop proposing policies that would sacrifice women's lives for no other reason than to emphasize women's central purpose as incubators.
The fact is, the majority of fertilized eggs are not going to become babies, with or without intervention. Saying a fertilized egg is no different than a baby is an insult to the baby. If people want to believe this way privately, fine, but it's an absurd notion to push on the rest of us, as the conservative voters of Mississippi declared.
In the end, I bet even Michael New, if his wife has an ectopic pregnancy, would take her for a doctor to get treated. No one would really want this law to apply to them,
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYour statement: "the majority of fertilized eggs are not going to become babies, with or without intervention" is completely without foundation. While miscarriages and stillbirths do occur, the majority of fertilized eggs result in healthy pregnancies and babies. The fact is we all started as fertilized eggs, and we are still here. For that we can thank our parents for choosing to let us live.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou are misinformed. Between 1/3 and 1/2 of fertilized eggs never implant in the uterus (the medical definition of 'pregnancy.'
Of those that implant, 31% will end in miscarriage. Approximately half of those miscarriages happen to women who never knew they were pregnant.
So in the end, anywhere from about 60% to 80% of fertilized eggs don't turn into babies. Fertilized eggs aren't really an entity for which God has a whole lot of regard.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePeople might be not like abortion but they want access to contraceptives, morning after pills, and other contraceptives/abortifactants that would have been banned by this amendment. One might add IVF procedures for infertility, aborting Down ’s syndrome babies, and using embryos for stem cell treatment. Basically when push comes to shove when they feel laws like this will affect them personally they will vote No. Just a reminder when allowing stem cell research has been on the ballot it has an undefeated record (if my memory is right).
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMy take on abortion has always been that if you're number one concern is reducing the amount of abortions, the best way to address that is from the ground up by convincing individuals abortion is immoral.
I've never really understood the obsession that this issue is best addressed by bureaucratic laws, especially since from my perspective it looks politically impossible. If Roe vs Wade were overturned and the states created their own abortion laws (something I wholeheartedly support) you'd probably have 48 states that had legalized abortions. And even then, outlawing abortion in a few states would be about as effective as Prohibition was at keeping Americans from getting drunk.
The fact that a state like Mississippi can't pass a law like this means it won't pass anywhere.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseClassic overreach.
Just when the pro-life movement is gaining a bit of ground and many liberals are now prepared to accept at least some restrictions on the availability of abortion, the intrusive Church Ladies have allowed the meme to spread far and wide throughout the land that "those crazy Republicans even want to ban contraception!"
Their entire effort has now been seriously (perhaps fatally) comprised. But alas... once you begin to meddle in people's private sexual lives, it is apparently impossible to restrain yourself.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI thought that the amendment went too far and had an obvious lack of scientific thought to it. Adding the requirement that the fertilized egg be "embedded in a womb" would have solved most of the big problems and overcome the science that for normal couples,most fertilized eggs do not emplant in a womb but are discarded (by nature, act of God or whatever mechanism you wish to apply).
By not restricting the amendment, the drafters brought IVF, stem cells, many problem pregnancies and a host of other issues. One step at a time would have been better and prevented many of the opposition baiting arguments.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe people of Mississippi have voted to declare war on the Lord. I wouldn't be surprised if He declares war back at them! They've forfeited their spiritual protection, and I look forward to horrible storms and other disasters being visited on this wicked state.
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