Debunking Pro-26 Arguments

When people argue for Initiative 26, they tend to use some of the same arguments (lies) (misconceptions). There's the abortion is bad/abortion is murder argument. This one is hard to fight. I personally don't believe abortion is murder. Yes, I think if someone were to choose to have an abortion at 8 months, that's crossing a line. But, unlike many pro-life activists want you to believe, these late-term abortions do not happen. Elective abortions are usually happening pre-viability, or before 22 weeks into the pregnancy. I'm so tired of pro-life arguments that ignore the facts. And they have to ignore the facts if they want to sway moderate voters; they have to tug on your heartstrings, and tell you that babies about to be born are being murdered, and hope that you know so little about abortion and/or pregnancy that you will believe them. And most people don't know much about abortion or pregnancy (especially, it seems, the people making the laws: see Rachel Maddow's clip, about Mitt Romney's lack of pregnancy knowledge, here [bonus: there are pictures of Oxford's very own Save the Pill Rally]).

Another argument, along the same lines as the first, and often used by the same people, is that criminalizing abortion will reduce the number of abortions. This is not true! As I've noted in previous posts, this personhood amendment, if passed, would make many forms of hormonal birth control illegal. And, as Jack Balkin writes in What Roe v. Wade Should Have Said: The Nation's Top Legal Experts Rewrite America's Most Controversial Decision, "Contraception is key to reducing abortion rates: 47 percent of the 6.3 million unplanned pregnancies that occur each year in the United States occur among the 7 percent of women who do not practice contraception." Did you get that, pro-lifers? Almost half of unplanned pregnancies come from only 7 percent of women, those women who do not have knowledge about, money for, or access to birth control. So, clearly, the best way to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies (thereby, I would assume, reducing the number of abortions) is to make birth control harder to come by, with fewer varieties. Oh wait. No that's exactly the opposite of what we need to do. If we want that 7 percent of women who don't or can't use contraception to stop contributing to half of America's unplanned pregnancies, then they need health care. They need access to regular birth control, as well as emergency contraception options. And they need their civil rights as human beings, as women, and as American citizens to protect them both when they are, and when they are not, pregnant.

No matter personal opinions on abortion; this initiative simply does not make legal sense. It's bad legislation, and it's dangerous. As I've said before, giving all the rights afforded a person to a fetus makes no sense; they simply have no need for those rights, because fetuses are simply not capable of the same actions and thoughts as a person. This argument that Initiative 26 is trying to make, the argument that personhood should begin at conception, came up in the trial for Roe, and was addressed even then, almost forty years ago. Justice Blackmun, the Supreme Court Justice who wrote the opinion in Roe, specifically dealt with this. Balkin writes, "Blackmun responded that the fetus was not a person within the meaning of the Constitution, pointing out that in many places the Constitution referred to the rights and duties of persons that would make no sense if applied to fetuses."

Vote No on 26: Bishop Gray's Statement

The Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi issued a statement today, expressing his concern over the personhood amendment and declaring that he does not support the initiative. Here is the statement:

My dear friends,

My deep reservations about abortion and the death penalty grow out of my abiding belief in the sanctity of human life and the arbitrary nature of these actions. I am not, however, a pacifist in regards to war. I do believe that some very serious moral decisions are not simply choices between good and evil, but rather in the case of two evils, choices between the lesser of two evils. Such is the complexity of human moral decision-making in a fallen world.

I appreciate the intentions of those who have supported Proposition 26, what has been called the Personhood Amendment. I share their passion for the sanctity of human life. However, I am gravely concerned about the unintended consequences of this legislation. The moral nightmares of doctors no longer able to give preference to saving the life of the mother in such cases as an ectopic pregnancy and the uncertain impact on in-vitro fertilization are real. Thus, the Board of Trustees of the Mississippi Medical Association has announced that it cannot support this legislation.

The legal nightmares arising from this legislation are also very real. The word “person” is used over 9,400 times in the Mississippi Annotated Code and the implications for mass confusion and decades of legal challenges over every use of the term are staggering.

For their own reasons, Roman Catholic bishops in several states, including Mississippi, have said they could not support this particular legislation.

While I recognize the complexities of such moral decisions and the need for each of us to make our own informed and prayerful choices, you need to know that I share the aforementioned concerns about the unintended consequences of this legislation. Thus, I cannot support Proposition 26 on the November 8th ballot in Mississippi.

Please feel free to share this letter with whomever you wish.

Faithfully,

The Rt. Rev. Duncan M. Gray, III

Thank you Bishop Gray! We need more religious/political/community leaders speaking out against personhood and speaking up for women's rights!

Also, if you are in the Oxford area today, there's a rally on the Courthouse Lawn from 5-7. Come show your support for women and children everywhere!

Vote No on 26!

Weaponry or Weddings: Sexism in Magazines

I'm going to go back to my usual cultural + things I notice + feminism = a blog post formula. I'm not done advocating for personhood and the Nov. 8 vote, but I don't have much new to say tonight. Keep checking here, as well as the blog for Parents Against MS 26 and the site for Mississippians for Healthy Families, for info on the personhood initiative (and check out the video that got picked up by Rachel Maddow's blog).

So I have become obsessed with all things magazines lately. I was looking at this website I discovered, which offers reduced-price magazine subscriptions. It seems kinda sketchy, and now that I work for a publishing company, I couldn't live with myself if I purchased a subscription from anywhere but the publisher's direct website, but it is a good way to browse through categories of magazines.

Here are some of the categories:

Lifestyle

Business & Finance

Men's

Teen

Animals & Pets

Women's

...and plenty more. But of course, my eye was immediately grabbed by the "women's" category. So I clicked on it to see the subcategories, which were as follows:

Bridal & Weddings (7)

Home & Cooking (57)

Pregnancy & Family (14)

Women's Health (27)

Women's Interests (78)

Fashion & Beauty (23)

The biggest category is Women's Interests, which is, of course, also the vaguest. Clicking on it led to a huge assortment of magazines. I noticed one feminist magazine right off the bat, Bust, and there may have been more; I don't claim to know all the titles for feminist publications. But many of the magazines in this category still had standard "feminine" cover pictures: pictures of celebrities, candles looking very homey, knitting patterns, and a baby. I noticed one magazine for working women (Professional Woman's Magazine) and at least one for exercise (Runners). But by and large, women's interests still seems to center around home decorating, cooking, and looking good.

And the "men's" category is no less stereotypical. Its subcategories are as follows:

Auto (105) 

Men's Fitness (13)

Men's Interests (39)

Outdoor (84)

Sports & Athletics (51)

Weaponry (18)

These categories crack me up. Weaponry? Tons of magazines with big guns on the covers.

It's amazing to me that in 2011 our magazines are still so gendered. If a woman with an interest in cars is looking for a new magazine, she has to know to click on "men's" in order to get there (which she probably will know to do, having been raised in our gender-segregated culture). And a man with an interest in cooking will have to find his magazines through the "women's" link. 

I know that a lot of today's magazines have been around for years, when these gendered divisions were even more pronounced in culture. But I still think it's time to branch out. After all, out of the subcategories for women's magazines, I would only click on two (health and interests), and still may not find a magazine that interests me. And I know plenty of men who find nothing of interest in any of the male categories. Yet companies, magazines, businesses, etc., continue to market products exclusively to one gender or the other (like Dr. Pepper's new "manly" campaign). 

Is this really helping products to sell when advertisers are excluding about half of the money-spending public?

Parents Against MS 26 Video

This will be a short post. Parents Against MS 26 have created a video to discuss the potential consequences of Initiative 26. Watch this video and share it with everyone you know!

The Need to Vote, Part II

I want to take at least one post to step away from personhood and discuss some of the other issues that could come up on Nov. 8.

First, along with Initiative 26, Initiative 27 will be appearing on the ballots this November. Init. 27 aims to require voters to present picture ID in order to vote. Wait, doesn't that kind of sound like the past practices of grandfather clauses, literacy tests and poll taxes that aimed to keep African-Americans from voting? Why, yes it does! The truth is that many people don't have up-to-date photo ID. For one thing, if you don't have the money for a car, is getting and keeping a current driver's license a top priority? Probably not. This bill is aimed to keep low-income people from the polls. And it could also keep women in general away from the polls. According to a post on Ms. magazine's blog, "as many as 32 million women of voting age don't have documentation with their current legal name." If you changed your name at marriage, you may not be eligible to vote! (You know, I was already thinking that if/when I get married, I would keep my last name because, let's face it, Genie doesn't sound good with any other names. But if this passes, it looks like I'll have another reason.)

Also, if you haven't already heard, the House of Representatives passed HR 358 this week. If you don't know what that is, I suggest reading this article (again, from Ms.) to get full details, but basically, it says that hospitals can refuse emergency treatment to pregnant women if they have a moral problem with it. So, if a pregnant woman comes into the hospital with an ectopic pregnancy, (a life-threatening situation when not treated, and also a situation that almost never leads to a viable pregnancy) the hospital can refuse to give her the medically necessary pregnancy termination that she needs. Not surprisingly, this has been dubbed the "Let Women Die Act." Supporters of it are calling the "Protect Life Act," though how it protects any life at all is unclear to me.

Now, it's unlikely that this bill will pass in the Senate, and if it does, President Obama has vowed to veto it. So the question is, why is it being dealt with at all? Why are legislators focusing on bills that won't become law when they could be making strides towards alleviating the economic and jobs crisis at hand? And why are legislators waging a war against women and their rights to health insurance and health care decisions?

We need to step up and vote for legislators who represent our interests. I'll be the first one to admit that I'm not usually politically active and I rarely do much research on candidates. But that time is over. We need to step up, find out who's running and what their platforms are, and vote. Here in MS, we're voting for a new governor on Nov. 8. Find out about the candidates, find out what they stand for. It's time to vote. Vote for women. Vote for jobs. As Kathy Spillar at Ms. said, "Vote like your life depends on it. Because it does."

Legal Personhood vs. Life

Today, I would like to discuss the difference between deciding (or believing) that life begins at conception and deciding (or believing) that legal personhood should begin at conception. This idea was brought up at a meeting I attended recently and I think it's a great way to look at and think about Initiative 26 in Mississippi.

I attended a meeting last week to hear a representative of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women speak. She discussed several important problems with Initiative 26, and then facilitated a question and answer/brainstorming about what to do next session. And someone else at the meeting mentioned this idea, the difference between when life begins and when legal personhood begins (I would credit her if I knew her name!). Basically, no one in the medical/scientific fields can reach a decision on when life begins (though the general definition for pregnancy is when the fertilized egg has implanted and not when the egg is fertilized). So if we can’t decide when life begins, how are we to decide when legal personhood begins?

David McCarty has written a great piece on the personhood amendment and what it will actually do. He makes direct reference to Mississippi’s Bill of Rights and many of the times that the word person is used. His point is that is eggs, blastocysts, zygotes and fetuses are legally persons, then all these person references will now apply to them. He then writes out many of these rights, including the phrase “including zygotes and fetuses” to point out how ridiculous it is. One example is this:

The right of every citizen, including zygotes and fetuses, to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person, or property, or in aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall not be called in question, but the legislature may regulate or forbid carrying concealed weapons. 

Now, if you read all the comments on this page, there are people crying out for McCarty to stop discussing the ridiculous aspect of the initiative. One commenter, who wrote in several times, said,

The bottom line is that if you support legalized abortion you either don't believe a zygote/embryo/fetus is in actuality (not just the legal sense) a person, or you just don't care that abortion causes the death of a person. In that case, I probably won't change your mind about opposing prop 26. I'll be the first to admit there are going to be more legal consequences than just abortion if somehow this were passed and it survived judicial scrutiny (which it won't). By all means, if you don't believe life begins at fertilization, vote no. But don't oppose the initiative because you are afraid of giving fetuses the right to bear arms.

He wrote this comment after saying that the legal consequences of Initiative 26 are just not as bad as we Vote No-ers are making it out to be and then being proven wrong by other commenters, including Atlee Parks Breland of Parents Against 26. What bothers me is the last sentence of his comment, because it entirely misses the point of McCarty’s piece. McCarty doesn’t oppose the initiative because he’s afraid of giving fetuses the right to bear arms. I’m pretty sure that, while if this passes fetuses will technically have that right, none of us are very worried about how they will choose to exercise that right. (Pregnant women swallowing guns for their fetuses? I doubt it.) The point is that if we vote to make fertilized eggs legal persons, we are endowing them with way more rights than they can or should have. A bundle of cells inside another human being should not have the right to peaceably assemble and petition the government. They can’t do it, physically, emotionally or mentally, so why should we be worried about their right to do so? And of course, I know that the pro-26-ers are not worried about that right; they are worried about the “right to life” (a phrase I hate, since I am very much pro-lives and against 26) and making abortion illegal. But this initiative goes too far. That is the point of McCarty’s piece. When we are endowing rights upon creatures who are not capable of exercising them, there is a problem.

As I’ve written before, the slavery comparison keeps coming up. But Allison Korn of the NAPW made an excellent point when she spoke last week. When we gave slaves the full rights of “persons” in this country, we simply gave them rights. We did not take away rights from anyone else; those rights didn’t come at anyone’s expense. We simply expanded the legal definition of a person. But this bill is different. This bill would be expanding the definition of a person at the direct expense of women. Women would lose their rights to decisions about their bodies and their families.

This bill is not pro-life or pro-lives. Pro-lives would mean taking care of the children we have. Pro-lives means dealing with problems like inaccessible health care, high infant mortality rates, high teen pregnancy rates and high child impoverishment. If Mississippi were truly pro-lives, we would be handling those problems. By illegalizing abortion and taking rights away from women, all of these problems will get worse. That is not a pro-lives, pro-Mississippi or pro-women solution.

The Personhood Amendment: Important Resources for Fighting Back

So, I've been pretty busy this week, changing up my work schedule and having to drive to Meridian tomorrow, so in the meantime I just wanted to provide y'all with articles and resources for the fight against the personhood amendment. Some you may have already seen, some maybe not, but all are worth checking out.

Also, if you're in the Oxford area, there is a fundraiser at Two Stick for Parents Against 26 and Mississippians for Healthy Families, with music and a raffle. Come show your support for MS families and vote no!

Facebook Groups (that I'm aware of) Against Personhood:
Mississippians Against Personhood Amendment
Vote No on Mississippi Amendment 26!
Ole Miss Rebels Against 26

Organizations Against Personhood:
Parents Against MS 26 (and here is their Facebook page)
Mississippians For Healthy Families (and Facebook) (and follow on Twitter @MS4HealthyFams)
National Advocates for Pregnant Women
The National Fertility Association's site for the personhood amendment
The MS Chapter of the American Congress of Obstetrics and Gynecologists (this is a letter to all MS members for the Executive Committee)

Well-written Articles Against Personhood:
Life and Law: The Commitment to Pre-Embryonic Personhood by Jonathan Will, Mississippi College professor of law, The Mississippi Business Journal
Don't Make Your Morals Our Laws by Martha Simmons, The Clarion-Ledger
Ban Birth Control? They Wouldn't Dare by Katha Pollit, The Nation
The Facts About Amendment 26 by Lexi Thoman, The Daily Mississippian
A Letter from the MSMA President by Thomas E. Joiner, M.D., president of the Mississippi State Medical Association
Pregnant Women who lose babies face murder charges by Ed Pilkington, The Guardian
MS Representative John Mayo's statement against personhood

Blogs Against 26 (there would be some overlap, since Parents against 26 has a blog but is also an established organization, so this is really just blogs that are discussing MS personhood on a regular-ish basis, and may be added to as I find more):
Deep-Fried Freethinkers

To Know What We're Up Against:
The actual personhood initiative
Freda Bush's pro 26 article in The Clarion-Ledger
Personhood USA's website

These are just the ones I've taken the time to bookmark; I know I've seen and read more. Feel free to provide more links to sites, articles and blogs in the comments.