A person already?

[rug]

Mississippi’s voters prepare to decide when personhood begins

Oct 8th 2011 | JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI | from the print edition

ONE evening in late September John Perkins, a veteran of the civil-rights movement, attended a rally at a Baptist church in Jackson in support of what he called “a total justice issue”. But this aspect of justice had nothing to do with any of the issues ordinarily associated with the civil-rights movement. It was concerned with Amendment 26, a measure on Mississippi’s ballot this November that defines a person as being “every human being from the moment of fertilisation, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof”.

The reason for the measure is straightforward; its consequences less so. The Supreme Court, in its landmark Roe v Wade ruling in 1973, held that the right of a woman to terminate her pregnancy in the first trimester was guaranteed by her constitutional right to privacy. But Harry Blackmun, the liberal justice who wrote the court’s majority opinion, noted that Henry Wade, the defendant, and others “argue that the fetus is a ‘person’ within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment…If this suggestion of personhood is established, case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’s right to life would be guaranteed specifically by the amendment.” In Blackmun’s view the constitution and judicial precedent failed to establish that personhood applied to the unborn. Mississippi is trying to fix that.

The measure is expected to pass. Mississippi is a conservative, religious state, and Brad Prewitt, the executive director of Personhood Mississippi, said that for most Mississippians, “this is a biblical issue.” The state already has a “trigger law” on the books, which would ban most abortions should the Supreme Court overturn Roe v Wade. And abortion providers in the state have to perform ultrasounds on all patients, giving them the chance to see the image before the procedure. Both the Republican and Democratic candidates for governor support the personhood measure, as does the attorney-general.

But what happens once the measure passes is unclear. Roe v Wade’s guarantee of first-trimester abortions remains in effect, and the constitution’s supremacy clause ensures that when state and federal laws are in conflict, federal law wins. So abortions would not immediately become illegal. But supporters are playing a longer game. Planned Parenthood and the ACLU sued (unsuccessfully) to prevent Amendment 26 from appearing on the ballot. If they sue once it becomes law, a series of lawsuits and appeals may well lead to the Supreme Court, whose political composition is far more favourable to anti-abortion activists than it was in 1973.

http://www.economist.com/node/21531503

[MH1]

1. And they don't actually give a shit about any 'person' except to control women.

That is why this is so sick.

[rug]

2. I wonder how many states already have trigger laws.

[RC]

3. Only seven or so states.

A nationwide survey of state laws by the Life Legal Defense Fund finds that just seven states, including Arkansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Wisconsin would ban all or most abortions if Roe is reversed.
http://www.lifenews.com/2007/01/04/state-2013/

[astonamous]

7. They are protecting their future slave laborers and military machine. n/t

[darkstar3]

8. Exactly.

[HockeyMom]

4. If a fertilized egg is a person,

then it is a citizen of WHERE? How are they going to prove WHERE conception took place to grant American citizenship? Just ONE of the absurd questions. Conception certificates instead of birth certificates? Are they going to issue death certificates every month to all women of childbearing age? MAYBE a "person" died with that monthly period? Will women have to proved they are not "murders" with every monthly period?
These people are crazy, and DANGEROUS.

[LeftishBrit]

5. Ugh

Firstly, why should a legislature be voting on a medical definition, or for that matter, a Biblical definition. If people believe literally in the Bible, then they can get their definitions from the Bible; they don't need to have the legislature vote on it. If they don't believe in the Bible, then it's not the legislature's job to make them do so.



Secondly, from a medical point of view, we run into all sorts of difficulties when we state that life begins at the moment of fertilization. It is more accurate to say that life, or at least its potential, *sometimes* begins at fertilization. Some fertilized eggs have genetic or chromosomal defects that prevent any sort of further development. Others fail to implant for a variety of reasons. While survival to term is rather uncertain even after implantation, the medical evidence suggests that the *majority* of pre-implantation embryos don't survive to birth. In practice, people usually think of conception as including implantation as well as fertilization, or you'd have to say that the majority of pregnancies end in miscarriage.


Thirdly, it is not at all clear that the Bible says anything that clearly defines when life begins. Here are some Bible quotes from a 'pro-life' religious site;

http://www.godandscience.org/doctrine/prolife.html

Thus they are probably the most convincing quotes that the site-owner, Rich Deem, can come up with. They include:


'And if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him; and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life." (Exodus 21:22-23)

Therefore, the law tells us that a man who induces an abortion or miscarriage is to be punished, indicating that God values life before birth. A verse from Hosea3 says that abortion is a punishment for sin, indicating God views it as bad. Likewise, God expressed His disgust for the Ammonites, who "ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead".'


But all of these involve causing an unwanted miscarriage, typically by injuring or even murdering the woman. Moreover, the first quote seems to me to go *against* the view that an unborn baby has the same right to life as someone who is already born, since inducing a miscarriage is only punishable by a fine, while killing or even seriously injuring the woman is punishable by the death penalty.


'Human life begins in the wombThe Bible tells us God is involved in our creation from the womb:

"Did not He who made me in the womb make him, And the same one fashion us in the womb? (Job 31:15)

Yet Thou art He who didst bring me forth from the womb; Thou didst make me trust when upon my mother's breasts. Upon Thee I was cast from birth; Thou hast been my God from my mother's womb. (Psalm 22:9-10)

For Thou didst form my inward parts; Thou didst weave me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Thy works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from Thee, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Thy book they were all written, The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them. (Psalm 139:13-16)

Thus says the LORD who made you And formed you from the womb, who will help you, `Do not fear, O Jacob My servant; And you Jeshurun whom I have chosen. (Isaiah 44:2)

Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb, "I, the LORD, am the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens by Myself, And spreading out the earth all alone, (Isaiah 44:24)'


All of these say that God created us while we were in the womb; i.e. that God was responsible for our fetal development. They do not seem to me to say that we were already persons from the moment of conception. So even if you accept the teachings of the Bible, I simply don't see how you reach this conclusion.

[kestrel91316]

6. If fetuses are full persons, then all miscarriages will have to be investigated

as possible homicides. And woe to the woman who did anything that posed the slightest risk to a fetus.

Hey, I say go for it. It will crash the unemployment rate - police departments and district attorney offices will be the nation's largest employers, along with the prison system.

[MH1]

9. isn't some backward state like Kansas already doing that now?

this is sick, sick, sick and I despise these people.

[NMMNG]

10. A person from conception till birth

Then it better pull itself up by its own bootstraps or die and decrease the surplus population. "Pro-life" people have a poor record of supporting anything that would help born humans live or thrive; such as healthcare, nutrition programs, education, housing support, etc.