Miss. defeats life at conception ballot initiative

[웃 910]

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. Supporters of the initiative wanted to provoke a lawsuit to challenge the landmark ruling.

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 proposed state constitutional amendment defined 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 bishop 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.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MISSISSIPPI_ABORTION_AMENDMENT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[dalegg 143]

There you go. More proof this should just go back to the States to decide. If you can't outlaw Abortion in Mississippi, where can you outlaw it?

[mawilson 2,133]

More proof this should just go back to the States to decide.

Why? What if some backward state outlaws it?

[dalegg 143]

Why? What if some backward state outlaws it?

I just read in another thread that Miss. is the most backward state in the Union. If they aren't going to outlaw it, then who is? States are going to become more and more pro-choice as time goes on. This debate could just end and we could never hear another GOP debate where each one declares how much more pro-life they are than the others. Ending the abortion debate could actually hasten the replacement of the Republican party with the Libertarian party.

Edited November 9, 2011 by dalegg

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Allah doesn't love abortion

[Danno 1,228]

Allah doesn't love abortion

of course not: I suspect the only one who love it are those making a killing off of it.

[Danno 1,228]

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. Supporters of the initiative wanted to provoke a lawsuit to challenge the landmark ruling.

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 proposed state constitutional amendment defined 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 bishop 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.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MISSISSIPPI_ABORTION_AMENDMENT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Bottom line, they tried to get too much, you can't lung from a culture of death to a culture of protecting life at even the microscopic stage.

If the libs have taught us anything it's "incrementalism" is a slow but sure method of change.

[Ban Hammer 13,752]

topic title edited to prevent flamefests.

[웃 910]

Allah doesn't love abortion

Allah works in mysterious ways. This was expected to pass. It can only be explained by Divine Intervention. At the last moment, Allah spoke. She casted the final vote. She loves abortion and the right to choose.

She is great!

In one of the biggest surprises of the night was Mississippi’s rejection of a far-reaching and stringent anti-abortion initiative known as the “personhood” amendment, which had inspired a ferocious national debate.

Initiative 26 would have amended the state Constitution to define life “to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.”

Supporters, including evangelical Christians, said it would have stopped the murder of innocent life and sent a clarion moral call to the world. They said they expected that passage in Mississippi would have built support for similar laws in other states.

Opponents, led by Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union, said the proposal would have outlawed all abortions, including in cases of rape and incest and when the mother’s life was in danger; would have barred morning-after pills and certain contraception such as IUD’s; and could have limited in vitro fertility procedures.

“The message from Mississippi is clear,” Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a statement. “An amendment that allows politicians to further interfere in our personal, private medical decisions, including a woman’s right to choose safe, legal abortion, is unacceptable.”

The push for a personhood amendment split the country’s anti-abortion movement. Traditional leaders including the Roman Catholic bishops and National Right to Life opposed it on strategic grounds, fearing it would lead to a United States Supreme Court defeat and set back to their efforts to chip away at abortion rights.

Governor Barbour is a strong opponent of abortion rights but expressed skepticism about the amendment’s wording

“It’s unnecessarily ambiguous,” he told MSNBC on Tuesday. He also criticized the strategy of sending it to voters rather than to the Legislature — a blunder he attributed to people in Colorado, who wrote the measure — and said it would not be a good test case with which to try to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. Nonetheless, Mr. Barbour said, he had supported the measure because he believes that life begins at conception.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/us/politics/votes-across-the-nation-could-serve-as-a-political-barometer.html

[mawilson 2,133]

Allah works in mysterious ways. This was expected to pass. It can only be explained by Divine Intervention. At the last moment, Allah spoke. She casted the final vote. She loves abortion and the right to choose.

Allah = Gary's wife?

[scandal 951]

Hubert Hoover, a cabinet maker and construction worker, voted for the amendment.

Waaaaaaiiiiiittttt a minute!

You trying to pull a fast one?

Hubert Hoover? Who's that, Herbert Hoover's long lost Mississippi cousin?

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

I just read in another thread that Miss. is the most backward state in the Union. If they aren't going to outlaw it, then who is? States are going to become more and more pro-choice as time goes on. This debate could just end and we could never hear another GOP debate where each one declares how much more pro-life they are than the others. Ending the abortion debate could actually hasten the replacement of the Republican party with the Libertarian party.

Alabama would take offense to you calling Mississippi the most backward state.

Allah = Gary's wife?

No H in "Alla"

She does work in mysterious ways.

Edited November 9, 2011 by Gary and Alla

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Bottom line, they tried to get too much, you can't lung from a culture of death to a culture of protecting life at even the microscopic stage.

If the libs have taught us anything it's "incrementalism" is a slow but sure method of change.

Then compromise. If the pro-life people (unless your life happens to include being gay/lesbian or you happen to tbe a murderer and then you can be executed) would agree to allow abortion in the case of incest, rape and to save the life of the mother, 95% of the abortions in this country would never occur.

Instead we get this religious nut job stuff that will not pass even in Mississippi.

But most of these nut jobs are in no way "pro life" they are simply "anti-abortion" and as long as they take that stance they will get no where.

Edited November 9, 2011 by Gary and Alla

[Captain Oates 911]

Allah doesn't love abortion

Allah has never been raped - or perhaps he/she has ?

[Captain Oates 911]

If a fertilized egg is a person, can it get a library ticket in Mississippi ?

If a corporation is person, at what stage is it conceived - at registration or when the founder dreams up the idea ?

If a corporation is a person, is dissolving it and firing all the employees, abortion or murder ?