Mississippi’s proposed ballot initiative intended to recognize legal personhood from conception onward failed to pass on Tuesday, Nov. 8, but its backers resolved to continue their work.
With about 90% of the vote counted on the evening of Nov. 8, Initiative 26 was failing by 58% to 42%.
“Changing a culture — and changing a country — will not happen with one election, and so, it is not unexpected. We thank the over one-quarter of a million Mississippians who voted for Amendment 26,” said Keith Mason, president and co-founder of initiative Personhood USA.
“We vow to continue on this path towards affirming the basic dignity and human rights of all people, because we are assured that it is the right thing to do, and we are prepared for a long journey.”
Mason said the initiative enjoyed the “widest, broadest base of support” ever seen on a pro-life amendment.
“This alone demonstrates that the tide is turning in America,” he said Nov. 9.
Other backers also weighed in.
“We are disappointed, but not discouraged. We are going to continue the fight for those who can’t fight for themselves,” Rev. Jimmy Porter, executive director of the Christian Action Commission of the Mississippi Baptist Convention, told the Jackson Clarion-Ledger.
Mason said the campaign “fell victim to the outright lies of our opposition, and because of their lies, children will continue to be murdered in Mississippi.”
Opponents included groups that support legal abortion as well as those who feared it would ban birth control pills, IVF treatments and procedures necessary to save the life of a pregnant mother in medically dangerous pregnancies.
Critics also objected to its lack of exceptions for abortion in cases of incest or rape.
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America argued the initiative “would have allowed government to have control over personal decisions that should be left up to a woman, her family, her doctor and her faith.”
Meanwhile, Catholic Bishop Joseph Latino of Jackson, Miss., was neutral on the initiative. In an Oct. 28 letter, he expressed support for the amendment’s goals but voiced concerns about the unintended legal challenges the initiative could create.
Similar amendments backed by the Colorado-based Personhood USA were placed on the Colorado ballot in 2008 and 2010 and also failed to pass.
Mason told Catholic News Agency in an interview before the election that past political successes like the abolition of slavery, the women’s suffrage movement and the civil-rights movement required repeated pushes to gain support until they succeeded.
Even unsuccessful efforts can continue to gain support and can give the issue a national profile, he said.
Janet Morana: Who Were the Early Feminists in the U.S.?
Edward Pentin: High Expectations for Rome March for Life 2013
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Be careful of the word PERSONHOOD. Some Gay guy I saw on TV recently was ranting and raving about his rights and how society was violating his Personhood and all that. So, let’s think about that. Certain words become popular but they don’t mean anything, or they are not very cute substitutes for reality. Other catchy words that come and go are terms like HOLISTIC and FROM THE GET GO, and other such childish stuff, usually started by some drunken celebrity or some bureaucrat with time on their hands. Don’t forget that even the Nazis covered up bleak reality by using certain words. For example, forcing Jews into ghettos so they could starve to death was called RELOCATION. Jews (and others the Nazis wanted to get rid of) were never gassed, they where DISINFECTED. Let’s get away from words that don’t describe anything, except to cater to the whims of whatever is currently in vogue. How about Humanity instead of Personhood, or at least something along those lines??
“Meanwhile, Catholic Bishop Joseph Latino of Jackson, Miss., was neutral on the initiative.”
How does this make the Catholic Church look?
http://www.rpconradio.com
Bishop Latino’s letter was most surprising in raising the specter of “unintended consequences” that the opposition raised—although Bp. Latino probably did not mean the scare-mongering employed by the opposition, who claimed that women who had miscarriages would prosecuted.
And if Bp. Latino’s letter was a surprise, at least he said something. Bp. Morin of Biloxi was completely silent.
There were clergy who opposed the initiative. One told me that the issue of “unintended consequences” focused on two things. First, the word,“person” is used quite a lot in the MS legal code, and it’s not clear that the authors of the law were thinking about a person in this sense. The other is that, as phrased, the law could be read to give tacit support to IVF and cloning. Cloning is not legal in MS, but IVF is. While many probably voted against the amendment to keep IVF legal, the clergy were worried it would be read in such a was as to make cloning legal. Before you scoff, remember some of the ways the courts have twisted “plainly-written laws”.
This sounds a lot to me like the saying, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” But, the priests who expressed concerns are genuinely pro-life, as far as I can tell. I would urge people to think charitably of the predicament we were in, and give money to Birthright or another pro-life organization that works directly with pregnant mothers.
I said in my heart concerning the sons of men, that God would prove them, and shew them to be like beasts.—Ecclesiastes 3:18
All future “Personhood Amendments” should include exceptions for rape, incest and to save the life of the mother. This would ban all but a few abortions and would most likely be approved by the voters.
Some of the world’s most prominent scientists and physicians testified to a U.S. Senate committee that human life begins at conception. Learn more at: http://www.personhoodinitiative.com/life-at-fertilization.html
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