Miss. defeats life at conception ballot initiative

Associated Press ^ | Nov.8, 2011 | EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS

[Free ThinkerNY]

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- Mississippi voters shot down a referendum Tuesday that would have effectively banned abortions in the state, rejecting an initiative that said life begins at conception.

The so-called personhood initiative was rejected by more than 55 percent of voters. 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.

[terycarl]

Like the other posters, you're missing the point. If conception is the legal start of personhood, then a one-celled zygote deserves the same protection as a 2, 4, 8 or whatever celled person. Legally, that means a woman could be charged with manslaughter for having a miscarriage or murder for using the pill. You might think a zygote deserves that level of protection. I might even agree, but you've got to convince a majority of voters to support you. That's my point. Most people, even Christians, aren't willing to treat the death of a freshly fertilized egg, a one-celled zygote, the same as the death of a child.

I miss nothing. The value of the life of an eighty year old and the life of a 2 celled zygote (1 egg and 1 sperm) are indeed equal. However, for the state to determine that both be treated exactly equally is preposterous. The wording of the Mississippi bill was such that even staunchly pro-life people could, in good conscious, vote against it. Some birth control pills, indeed, cause a fertilized egg to be aborted....if you want to practice birth control, forbidden by the Catholic church and only recently allowed by the protestant church, use a method that prevents fertilization and doesn't kill the baby.

[little jeremiah]

If the majority can rule that it is illegal to murder someone, they can change their views and vote that it is legal to murder someone.

The Constitution should be the guide, not whims of voters, when the issues are constitutional issues. And the right to life is a constitutional issue. I have no problem with voters being able to vote on abortion issues, but they shouldn’t be voting on when life begins.

That’s not up for votes. Voters can’t vote to make day night, and night day.

[HiTech RedNeck]

So will you sit paralyzed in purist principle when you could actually get a statute that could both head off much future harm and not exclude even further efforts down the line? Because, augh, the darn thing was VOTED on by “We The People”?

[terycarl]

“it was the year zero and you know that one of the embryos belongs to a gal named Mary.” What if one of the embyos grows up to be Charles Manson

it's OK....manson, born in the year 1, would be 2010 years old by now

[HiTech RedNeck]

Or to put it another way, what authority, if not “we the people,” do you want the responsibility to get passed to? If it’s your God that might not be my God, so there is no escape along those lines.

[little jeremiah]

If the people in MS or any other state wnat to re-do this I’m fine with it. In principle I think voters would be better served - and life - if the vote was not “when does life begin” but with the assumption that life begins at conception, which it obviously does, and then offered a vote about protecting life.

I may be misunderstanding the measure in which case I”ll read it again tomorrow because tooth pain is interfering with my brain right now.

[little jeremiah]

Why are you so irritated? What’s this “my God” and “your God” thing? I’m trying to have a respectful discussion with you.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Jack up the hood and put another car under it, while you’re busy repainting the body work?

There is no escape with quibbles like this either.

[HiTech RedNeck]

I am speaking logically; I believe you project.

[HiTech RedNeck]

You’re going to then have to get your “assumption” in to the works. No escape, somebody has to vote. Given that stark buff naked reality, I’d sooner it be the larger body of people than the little cadre of judges that can get “assumptions” in. Things are more stable that way.

[EternalVigilance]

I have no idea what you mean. The Constitution of the United States imperatively requires the equal protection of every person.

[LifeComesFirst]

Admit it. When the chips are down, and it really would matter, nobody ACTUALLY thinks a fertilized egg is a person or would treat it as such.

You're wrong, here's one person who believes life begins at conception. If a newborn baby is a human, why not a baby just before birth? If a baby just before birth, why not a baby a week before birth? If a baby a week before birth, why not a month before birth? If a baby a month before birth? Why not six months before birth? If a baby six months before birth, why not a baby eight months and three weeks before birth? If a baby eight months and three weeks before birth, why not a baby at conception?

Each step back in time brings us to a baby that, if we are to define it as not human, we must appeal to some arbitrary criteria, in the same way that we somewhat-but-not-entirely arbitrarily decide that 16 is old enough to drive, 18 is old enough to vote, 21 is old enough to drink, 25 is old enough to run for Congress, etc.

But unlike the denial of these other rights based on age, mental, social, and physical development, if one is denied the basic right to life before birth, one cannot enjoy it later. Life removed is life irrevocably removed.

As absurd as you find it to regard a (temporarily) microscopic organism as a human organism deserving of the basic right to life, you must understand that your sense of absurdity is a cultural bias, it is not an argument that an unborn baby (at any stage of development) isn't a human. Either now or in the past there existed cultures that would have thought it absurd to value the life of a woman or child or newborn or person outside the nation/tribe/ethnicity/race as equal to a man. How big, how fully grown, or how fragile or self-supporting a human organism is is not an indicator of how human it is. If anything, the smallest, most fragile and defenseless humans are most deserving of protection.

[little jeremiah]

Jack up car? I don’t get it.

[little jeremiah]

We have a Constitutional Republic (or we started out as one), not a pure democracy which = mob rule.

I don’t get at least 1/3 of what you’re saying. Guess you’re too smart for me.

[goat granny]

From what I have read you are right. It was not a law to outlaw abortions, but would have also been illegal to get contraceptives..They went too far and lost the chance to do away with abortions.. The shame is on the radicals that wanted more than abortions to be made illegal...they wanted everything and got nothing...just finished arguing with one that wanted everything made illegal..blame it on them.

[TBP]

Drafted differently, it might well have won.

[kroll]

you must understand that your sense of absurdity is a cultural bias,

Excellent point (and brilliant post by the way). However....

If anything, the smallest, most fragile and defenseless humans are most deserving of protection.

This is also a cultural bias - the notion that conception (clearly the beginning of life) immediately leads to something "human". And isn't that precisely what the debate is about?

[stylin19a]

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.

actually, that's not quite true that it conflicts. The Supremes punted on "when life begins" in Roe v Wade. It actually gives the states an out from Roe. If some state does pass it, it may require the Supremes to rule on "when life begins", which they have been loathe to do.

[DannyTN]

I agree, that implications have to be dealt with. The code should specifically state that both the life of the mother and the child should be respected.

• Doctors should be given a wide degree of discretion in determining that the health of the mother is at stake. Abortion to deal with conditions such as Tubal pregnancies where there is no known way to save the life of the child should be written into the code.
• I don't understand why it would ever be necessary to have a test tube of "fertilized" eggs, as opposed to one fertilized egg. A mother only produces one egg. Why do you need a whole test tube full?
• Aren't miscarriages medically investigated now to determine the cause? Criminal investigations should only be performed if intentional abortion is suspected.

[Louis Foxwell]

The vote was manipulated by the abortion industry to be about personal choice (for the mother, not the baby). It was decided it is an invasion of privacy to say that a baby is alive from the moment it is ....alive. The culture of death is alive and well in Mississippi.