“Vote yes on 26” dot net – is a largely out of state group. The yeson26.net people have pulled some nasty deceptions. They have even sunk as low as hijacking the URL
“http://mississippiansforhealthyfamilies.com” and setting up an attack
website there. The actual url for Mississippians for Healthy Families is http://votenoon26.com/ – Vote No on 26, Mississippi! My fliers have been pulled down, yard signs for “No” have been stolen and comments on their Facebook page have been deleted for revealing the truth – not for opposing or attacking, but just for revealing information. I posted on one of their posts and both comments were removed and I can no longer comment. My comments were :
“The Amendment’s language neither expresses nor implies such a ban.” The Amendment’s language neither expresses nor implies a ban on abortion either. There is no guarantee about what this will or won’t do as is all left up to the courts. I suppose the question becomes “Do you trust the government to decide everything about your mother, your sister or your daughter’s pregnancy?”
and (in reply to a quote used)
retired OBGYN and yeson26.net board member, Beverly A. McMillan, M.D. : “I painfully agree that birth control pills do in fact cause abortions.”
They point out that out of state people are involved in the resistance, those freedom fighters campaigning against the horrible “26.” They, however, fail to also note that the anti-choice “yeson26.net” is backed by many more out of state organizations and people (and significantly more money!). Personhood USA – based in Colorado – is the driving force behind the proposal. They brought in Mike Huckabee (of Arkansas) to raise money. “Georgia Right To Life” is a driving force behind a supposedly Mississippi based organization. A California ‘Reverend’ has been brought in to convince the ‘communities of color.’
They claim that there is “Big Money” behind opposing 26 – however, have you seen more “yes” tv commercials, radio spots, yard signs or more “no”? What about their website? Man, that is slick and pricey. So, if you want to see where the “Big Out of State Money” is – they have it. (update : some tv ads for “No” are running and I’ve seen billboards are up in some places!)
Calling them extremists is well backed up as well. Personhood Mississippi is founded and directed by Les Riley, a long-time proponent of usurping our nation’s constitution and creating a theocracy in it’s place.
They even admit that the amendment throws all kinds of laws into question :
“The legislature
and the courts will still have to wrestle with the application of the
law to specific circumstances.
IVF
stem cell research
some forms of birth controll
embryo adoption
(and many more areas)
all may be touched by this law, but none are directly addressed.”
Then pawn off any and all responsibility for the repercussions of such a reckless change to our constitution (the misspelling is theirs):
“The Personhood Amendment sets the parameters – lawmakers, judges,
members of the excutive branch are still charged with the duty of dealing with the myriad of possible applications.”
Another thing to consider : Women are not pregnant until the fertilized egg actually attaches to the uterine wall and starts developing. So, this amendment will make a ‘person’ before a pregnancy occurs!
[UPDATE] Now they have altered their FAQ page and changed their answers! It appears the Truth didn’t sit well with Mississippians, so they’ve changed the text. Deep-Fried Thinkers goes into more detail!
I found This article while searching for “Mississippians for Healthy Families” – the official group opposing the Personhood amendment. I just thought I’d correct some of the vote yes on 26 group’s misinformation from their press release and the story above.
The Personhood Amendment WILL result in more prosecutions of women for miscarriages. Why do I say “more?” Because its already an established process. ( See : Utah and Mississippi ) Mississippi has already charged a 15 year old girl with Depraved Heart Murder for having a miscarriage (while using drugs). When a fertilized egg is a “person” it will be much worse. Right now when you have a miscarriage, its between you and your doctor for the most part. When a “person” dies, you must call in the coroner for a preliminary investigation and a death certificate.
The Outlawing of Contraceptives. To be fair, only birth control pills (BCP), other Hormonal Birth Control and Inter-Uterine Devices will be outlawed. Those methods prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterine wall – even as a third tier effect. Condoms will still be legal, since that prevents fertilization in the first place.
This is a big one that they have changed, returned and changed again on. “The Pill” they are currently claiming will not be outlawed. Well, their phrasing says that “the amendment will not outlaw birth control” – and it won’t by itself, but the re-defining of a person will have the effect of outlawing birth control pills.
A retired OBGYN, Beverly A. McMillan, M.D. is on their board and is quoted in the previous link as saying, “I painfully agree that birth control pills do in fact cause abortions.” So, how can they tell you with a straight face that the amendment will not outlaw the pill? They can’t. They Lie.
Rev. W. Hoye, a Personhood USA spokesman from California who is trying to indoctrinate the Black Community to vote “yes” admits that “The Pill” will be outlawed, if what Dr. McMillan says is true.
Of course, with the abstinence only policies pushed by the state currently that either ignore protection all together or emphasize that they don’t work, unwanted pregnancies will skyrocket and many more Mississippians will rely on welfare to get by.
In Vitro Fertilization will be effectively outlawed. The process fertilizes many eggs outside the woman’s body and inserts them until one attaches to the uterine wall and becomes a pregnancy. With the “Personhood” law in effect, all those fertilized eggs will be people, therefore, if they are not used, they will be, effectively, murdered. So, no doctor will want to risk such charges.
Les Riley dug up this quote to share on their “bioethics“* page and I changed the emphasis :
However ccording to Fritz Baumgartner, MD (a surgeon and UCLA medical professor):
“Every human embryologist worldwide states that the life of
the new individual human being begins at fertilization. No human
embryologist has ever described human life as “potential” human life.
Thus, killing the embryo — by harvesting embryonic stem cells, by using
abortifacient contraceptives, by committing so-called therapeutic
cloning, or by flushing spare in-vitro fertilization embryos down the
sink — takes that human life.“
Risks to women’s health. The biggest factor here is ectopic pregnancies or tubal pregnancies.
“There is no way to save an ectopic pregnancy. It cannot turn into a normal pregnancy. If the egg keeps growing in the fallopian tube, it can damage or burst the tube and cause heavy bleeding that could be deadly. If you have an ectopic pregnancy, you will need quick treatment to end it before it causes dangerous problems.”
However, with the fertilized egg being considered a Person, with full rights, those pregnancies can not legally be terminated. So, doctors are faced with murdering the egg or in effect murdering the woman. Some doctors may even refuse to treat women at all due to the dangers of such occurrences.
In October 2007, The Guardian reported :
Last November it became a crime for a woman to have an abortion in
Nicaragua, even if her life was in mortal danger. So far it has resulted
in the death of at least 82 women. (11 months, 82 deaths)
Maybe it would be a little less insane if it sought to define ‘person’ as being from the moment of implantation in the uterus – when a woman becomes pregnant. Using ‘moment of fertilization’ has got to be used to target In Vitro Fertilization.
Dr. Randall S. Hines , a fertility specialist in Jackson working against Proposition 26 with the group Mississippians for Healthy Families,
said that the amendment reflects “biological ignorance.” Most
fertilized eggs, he said, do not implant in the uterus or develop
further.
“Once you recognize that the majority of fertilized eggs don’t become
people, then you recognize how absurd this amendment is,” Dr. Hines
said. He fears severe unintended consequences for doctors and women
dealing with ectopic or other dangerous pregnancies and for in vitro
fertility treatments. “We’ll be asking the Legislature, the governor,
judges to decide what is best for the patient,” he said.
Abortion is a big business? On average, there are only 3,200 abortions in Mississippi each year – and Planned Parenthood performs none of them. Many of those are teenagers, due to the state not wanting to educate them on how not to get pregnant when having sex. Not quite “Big Business.”
On the Federal level, only 3% of Planned Parenthood‘s services are abortion related and none of the federal tax dollars go toward those services, as that is already against the law. Outlawing abortion would do absolutely nothing to hurt Planned Parenthood, but would do a lot to damage Mississippi and our Young Women.
Most of the areas Mississippi leads the Nation in are really bad statistics. Draw your own conclusions about Mississippi leading to pass this kind of legislation.
Proponents of the silly amendment do believe that this is the first state where their legislation is likely to pass – because they think we are really that stupid. Even National Right To Life refused to support this kind of legislation “because they thought it was counter-productive and likely to be struck down as unconstitutional.“
A waste of money? Pushing this initiative and all the advertising they are doing when they know full well that Mississippi law states that the Initiative process can not be used to alter the “Bill of Rights” section of the State Constitution is a waste of money. It will cost the state and taxpayers dearly if this passes on the ballot and then must be struck down by the courts.
If by some malfeasance of the court, it actually stands if passed, it would lead, statistically speaking, to 739 additional teen births per year, which would cost our taxpayers, roughly, an additional $16 Million dollars per year. (see High Cost of Teen Birth) Do you think an poor, unemployed teenager would be able to pay the $11,000 plus price tag of giving birth? Young women (and by association, young men) would have very little to keep them in the state and lots of reasons to leave as soon as possible.
I hope that the Majority in Mississippi are really not so stupid as to pass this horrible initiative.
Mississippi Doctors Against 26 are uhm… are Against 26. 🙂
For your “Vote No on 26” bumper stickers and a t-shirt, go to http://www.zazzle.com/ms_bobbykearan
Watch my New Video – Every Child
Also check out Parents Against MS 26 and an article on The Daily Mississippi Online.
Read this article about the new battle on abortion rights.
Read The Handmaid’s Tale (Everyman’s Library)
Terminology
I am Pro-Life and Pro-Choice. There is no contradiction there. Contradiction lies in someone claiming to be Pro-Life and supporting pollution, the death penalty and opposing programs to help care for and feed children – both before and after birth – and public education for all. Anti-Choice is the more accurate term for those opposed to abortion.
Nobody is Pro-Abortion. Its not an easy choice to make, but sometimes, it is the right thing to do, for the good of all involved – even the potential child. If you are privileged enough to not even have to consider the option, good for you, but do not deny anyone else the ability to make the hard decision to do the right thing.
(I’ve outlined more reasons why to vote no on 26 in this post and more on why Anti-Abortion is not Pro-Life in this post.)
If you are on Twitter, follow @NoOnMS26 and @MS4HealthyFams (and @BobbyKearan ).
On Facebook, Like the Mississippians for Health Families link at the top and join two previously started grassroots groups – “Vote no on Mississippi Amendment 26” and “Mississippians against Personhood Amendment“
* It is my contention that these people have no idea what Ethics really are nor what it means to be ethical.
I found this :
"Now to the problems:
(1) How does the government ensure it knows about the persons it is supposed to protect? Would there be mandatory pregnancy tests to ensure that both women and law enforcement are aware of the persons that have to be protected?
(2) How are we to draw the line between involuntary/natural abortions and abortions due to reckless behavior of the woman? Would pregnant women be automatically sent on preventive medical leave once they're pregnant?
(3) How would Child Protection Services acutally protect unborn children? They can't take them away from an "abusive" mother, who, for example, drinks alcohol. Would the woman have to be taken into a birthing prison?
(4) What is endangerment of the unborn child? Drinking alcohol? Eating shellfish? Would a waiter have to ask women whether they're pregnant before pouring wine?
Which brings us back to (1) – will there be "not-pregnant" licenses that are to be renewed monthly and that allow women to do what they want?"
on http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=74322 and thought it was worth sharing.
Would it be alright if I used some of your writings (particularly the numbers on another post) to make a Vote No on 26 flyer to distribute at the Mississippi University for Women? You can contact me at mrc1@muw.edu
I agree with you and many other opponents of 26 in that the wording of the bill is very vague. I am pro-life, and feel entirely comfortable banning abortion and all other methods that terminate a pregnancy (and yes, I believe pregnancy starts at conception – not implantation), but I wish they had been a LOT more detailed with the bill since people who aren't so sure about don't go panicking and spreading horrors of the worst-case scenarios. Of course it would be ridiculous to force a woman to carry an ectopic pregnancy that's going to lead to a natural miscarriage – or punish women that have miscarriages. I know the heart of the pro-life movement doesn't want that to happen. (And one note on the "heart of the pro-life movement" – I am referring to those that believe life begins at conception, NOT because of religious beliefs, or because God thinks its wrong, or because the "fetus" has a soul – but for the same reasons we, as humans, believe it's wrong to kill other humans.)
Anyway, I think the bill might be self-defeating given its ambiguity. Maybe it's written that way so people will underestimate its power and reach and go ahead and vote "yes," but obviously many people have more questions before they feel comfortable voting yes. I think the movement would be much better off if everyone were more thoroughly informed.
One other comment – your statements about Planned Parenthood in Mississippi are kind of misleading. There's only one Planned Parenthood in Mississippi. It's in Hattiesburg and doesn't even offer abortions (according to their website). To my knowledge, there's only one facility that offers abortions in MS and it's in Jackson. I'm proud that Planned Parenthood doesn't have much footing in MS (because of their strong pro-abortion stance, not because I am against sex education or birth control). But other states have over a hundred centers. Nationwide, there were more than 1.2 million abortions, so yes, abortion is big business.
Anonymous Anti-Choicer,
I am glad you realize the bill is so ambiguous. The "worst case scenarios" are already happening all over the United States. Its not a stretch of the imagination – its reading the newspapers. Women ARE being prosecuted for miscarriages, dragged from their homes and forced to undergo medical procedures against their will. If 26 passes and stands the expensive court challenges, those things WILL happen more often and happen here.
(again, anti-abortion is not pro-life.)
I think the Anti-Choice movement would be much better off to STOP trying to pass legislation, stop trying to outlaw abortion, realize that there are going to be times when women WILL abort, legal or not and its best to have it done safely and professionally. I think the Anti-Choice movement would be MUCH better off putting all that money into outreach, partnering with Planned Parenthood to offer real alternatives – paying pregnancy expenses, direct adoptions, Sex Education to prevent unwanted pregnancies and other pro-active measures.
Quit trying to end a symptom, try to stop the Causes.
… and my statement on Planned Parenthood is totally accurate for Mississippi.
Hi…I've seen you mention in other comments that even National Right to Life doesn't support it, and I would love to have a link if they've been quoted online. Do you have one?
Links for NRTL not supporting Personhood :
http://www.aipnews.com/talk/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=14530&posts=3
and http://americanrtl.org/news/legacy-judas-response-bopp
and http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=43769
All of those also hilight the nut-case arguements for the insane "personhood" amendments. Basically, NRTL wants to be more insidious and wear away our reproductive rights a little at a time until they have a clear majorty that believe women are nothing but breed-stock with no rights nor opinions.
Thanks for those!
I think you make some very valid points. I enjoyed hearing the other side of the story. Please be careful not to become so one sided that you find yourself on the opposite end of the spectrum. Part of the fight to be fair and balanced depends on those of us in the "middle" willing to find the truth even if it disagrees with us.
It's sad and terrifying that so many are voting for this on the premise that it's an anti-abortion law. It's an amendment that effectively reduces women to cattle based on a movement of self-righteous control freaks and skilled religious performers. I am a Christian and I'm voting NO for the simple reason that the government has proven itself to be much too incompetent to dictate the existence of a pregnancy or the conditions of a delivery. They can't effectively balance a checkbook, so why would they have the capacity to determine what is best for every single woman and every single fetus? A woman absolutely has a right to a natural childbirth at home without a deputy beating down her door and strapping her to a gurney like she's a mindless baby vessel. Under this law I guess Mary would be guilty of child endangerment for riding a donkey 9 months pregnant and giving birth to Jesus in a dirty animal stable. It's an antediluvian concept that takes us straight back to the dark ages when women were property. If Mississippi passes this amendment, they'll likely lose their population of women who use hormonal birth control for medical reasons or who have foresight and consult their personal physicians about reliable long-term contraception.
I'm voting yes..It will pass God has a hand it believe it or not.The lies are here and Satan created..I'll pray for you..
There are no lies here, anonymous prayer. Feel free to point one out if you think you have found one.
Otherwise, I'll sacrifice a chicken (or two) for you.
Either you believe an unborn baby should have the same rights as any other person or you don't. It's that simple.
If you believe that an unborn baby is a person and should have the same right to protection of life as any other person, then the rest of the issues (some legitimate, some not) have to be dealt with within the context of that truth. Yes – it may be difficult to have to wrestle with those issues, but we shouldn't pretend that we can make the issues go away by sweeping them under the rug and just proclaiming that unborn babies are not human.
@William – believe all you want, but don't try to legislate.
I wrote this elsewhere, but :
Before birth, a pre-embryo (fertilized egg) is a not-very-likely potential life, an embryo is a potential life, a fetus is a very potential life. There are medically recognized stages of development (Trimesters), therefore there are differences in the ratio of rights between the living, breathing woman and the potential life inside her. Reality is not black and white.
A woman having a fertilized egg inside her does not automatically negate all of her rights, nor does she loose rights up to two weeks later when she might become pregnant, nor three months after that. There is a ratio that starts with all rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness belonging to the woman and gradually reaches a level of equality between the woman and potential life inside her.
i26 makes it law that two cells inside a woman instantly have more right to life than her liberty. You can have that belief and act that way in your life and that is fine with me, but I will vote No to that being the law.
It all comes down to what you beleive. Did GOD put that baby there or did man? A baby is a gift from GOD no matter how it happened.And you sir are so wrong for misleading people.The life of the mother will be put first.So you believe what you want and make up all these little things inside your head. I believe GOD put that baby there and GOD is in control.
This sir from a DEEP FRIED THINKER!!!!!!
I am not the one misleading people. Anyone can fact check me all they want.
It takes a man and a woman to "put a baby there" – no God required.
Its fine with me if you want some invisible old man in the sky in control – but it is NOT okay for you to try to put government in control!!!!!!!!
invisible old man??? you my friend are blinded by the god of this world, and will be judged on the last day. Repent and believe before it is too late. I say this out of love.
@Josh : no, you don't say that out of love. You say it out of fear that I don't agree with you and I might be right. Anyobe that disagrees with you threatens your belief so you strike at them like a molting viper.
The very word "repent" is full of judgement and hatefulness.
You call me blinded, but I can see further and more clearly than most, including you, I believe.
I hope one day you can leave fear behind.
Dear Anonymous "Deep Fried Thinker"
So would God put a baby there because a girl's father/ brother/ uncle had sex with her and she became pregnant? What about a woman who was raped? Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the Bible say something against that? I am a devout Catholic, and a firm pro-lifer, but my issue is that this bill would eliminate women's rights. As a Catholic, we have the right of free will, and you can look at the Bishop's website and find that the church has not taken a stance on this initiative and has asked us to vote based on our conscience. Please remember that this bill is more about women's rights than being against abortion.
I firmly agree with Bobby. The amendment is just an excuse for everyone here in Mississippi, the U.S. state with the lowest graduation rate, literacy rate, and to my understanding economy, and the highest unemployment rate, obesiety rate, and MOST ACCIDENTAL PREGNANCIES. Both Mississippi and Alabama are credited with the stereotype of having the most incest families in the U.S.. This bill will only increase that stereotype until all surrounding states go "Uhhhh… let's not move there." There are too many people in the world that think without reason. With all the above established, and maybe Bobby can get me some links with examples of the above statements, lest I be wrong on my hyptheses about highest and lowest rates, I think of a phrase I've seen before. Bob Marley says "Once the power of love conquers the love for power, we will know a peaceful world." I believe, that "Once the power of logic conquers over the power of emotion, the will think clearly, and know true peace." I missed my chance to support the No's because I attended work, but that doesn't take away my right to.
I enjoyed every little bit part of it and I will be waiting for the new updates.