Mississippi personhood vote on razor’s edge
A new poll underscores just how close Mississippi is to passing the country’s first “personhood” law, which would define life as beginning at conception. Public Policy Polling finds that, hours before tomorrow’s vote, 45 percent of voters supported the amendment, while 44 percent opposed it.
“Things can definitely go either way tomorrow,” said Public Policy Polling director Tom Jensen. “The stakes here are huge. This is really the most interesting thing on the ballot tomorrow anywhere in the country.”
~ Sarah Kliff, The Washington Post’s Wonkblog, November 7
[Photo by Rogelio V. Solis – AP, via The Washington Post]
Nov.08, 2011 6:00 am |
Human Life Amendment |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Ah Mississipi, what a wonderful state.
Ranks last in health.
Third highest rate of diabetes and high blood pressure.
Lowest per capita personal income.
Unemployment rate of 10.6%.
1 in 5 living in poverty.
Last in academic achievement.
Second highest rate of imprisonment.
High infant mortality rate.
Higher maternal mortality rate than 44 other states.
What a wonderful state to bring more unwanted and under-resourced new lives into.
Early reports indicate that commonsense may have prevailed. Let’s await the final result.
I see only Reality has posted.
Anyway, I’m quite disappointed in the outcome. I know not all pro-life groups supported the Amendment, but I figured it would pass. It just… pisses me off (sorry for the language) that all the negative press, and there was A LOT of it, and fearmongering won the day. Reading the comments on the usual usual websites isn’t helping me any, either. Oh well. I guess tomorrow is another day.
This had no chance of surviving legal scrutiny anyway. One need not even go to Roe vs Wade as a basis for legal rejection. This Amendment would have likely made some forms of hormonal contraception illegal (Plan B, EllaOne ect).
Griswold vs Connecticut specifically stated that outlawing contraception is unconstitutional. Therefore, ANY pharmaceutical that has its PRIMARY INDICATION FDA-approved as a *contraceptive* cannot be made illegal for sale. As long as the FDA recognizes that its mechanism of action is primarily one of conception prevention, the Supremacy Clause overrides State laws.
Remember, the FDA derives it powers for approving medications from Congress, and it is the sole body that determines if a medication can be *marketed* for an indication or not. Mississippi could not have overruled the FDA and prevented the marketing and sale of ANY FDA-approved medication that has its primary indication as a contraceptive measure. That’s Griswold.
Should this have passed, all Pharmaceutical makers of the Pill and IUD would have to do is AMEND their FDA Drug application to remove the “thinning of the uterine lining” mechanism of action – which the evidence for is poor at best. That should have NEVER been approved by the FDA as the evidence is ALL from animal models. After amending their FDA-approved labels, MS would have had no legal basis to ban the sale and use of contraceptives.
The final vote tally wasn’t even close: something like 58% to 42%, for a difference of over 130,000 votes, according to the AP’s election returns data.
Considering that National Right to Life and some Catholic bishops opposed this initiative, it’s no surprise that it failed. Their argument is that it’s not a good strategy to push for personhood on the state level, and I’m inclined to agree. If passed it would have been declared unconstitutional immediately by some bottom feeding “progressive” judge with no regard for the law.
And it goes without saying that every pro abort monster would knee jerk oppose ANYTHING that might possibly promote a culture of life in any way. I do find it to be interesting that the pro aborts have finally decided to face reality when it comes to birth control pills having a potential abortifacient effect prior to implantation. Don’t expect them to continue to say that now, though. That was almost as funny as when they all of a sudden decided to start caring about HPV because a vaccine was created.