On March 5, Mississippi pro-life activists filed paperwork for a new personhood initiative almost identical to the one rejected by Mississippi voters in November 2011.
The previous measure, Amendment 26, said, “The term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.”
Anne Reed, spokeswoman for Mississippi Personhood, the group sponsoring and campaigning for the bill, said she believes Amendment 26 failed to gain enough signatures needed to appear on the ballot due to fears of consequences on women’s reproductive health care from voters.
Reed said, “I do question whether or not it would have passed had the groups – like Parents Against Personhood and some of the other groups that were funded by Planned Parenthood – if they had not put a lot of the scare tactics out there just a few weeks before it went on the ballot. I think a lot of people were just very confused.”
She said she is confident their group will gather enough signatures this time, and the language of the new bill will gain positive feedback in the polls.
“It’s better, and it’s more clear just because we’re using more everyday language. The great majority of the citizens of the state of Mississippi believe that life begins at conception and believe that that life is valuable,” she said.
Voters, according to Reed, will be more comfortable with the wording of the new bill, which is close to the language seen in the Declaration of Independence.
The new personhood bill states, “The right to life begins at conception. All human beings, at every stage of development, are unique, created in God’s image and shall enjoy an inalienable right to life.”
Worded differently from Amendment 26, the initiative still upholds personhood in the same manner.
Voters fear defining personhood could lead to the banning of contraception.
Contrast to concerns, Reed said, “Contraception is designed to keep a woman from actually conceiving. So, we’re not talking about a human being being in the picture. So it would not affect contraception.”
Some in-vitro methods, however, would be banned under personhood, according to Reed. She said the bill ensures a fertilized egg will have full rights under the law. This would criminalize any action stopping the formation and growth of the embryo. Reed also said selective reduction, a common procedure that stops fertilized eggs in an in-vitro patient from growing, would be banned.
“We’re not for selective reduction. We’re not for abortion. We’re not for killing babies,” Reed said.
The next step for Mississippi Personhood is to gain support throughout the state, gathering at least 107,216 signatures in 12 months. Reed said students are getting involved in the campaign, including one group called Students for Life, who will be working alongside Mississippi Personhood.
Atlee Breland, founder and president of Mississippi Personhood’s primary opponent, said Parents Against Personhood, which is neither a pro-life nor pro-choice organization, wants to help people understand the unintended consequences of personhood. Breland has had children through infertility treatment, treatment that would be unavailable if personhood were to pass, she said.
“Personhood, if it were passed and if it got through the Supreme Court, would have drastic effects on how we treat patients in fertility, would have potential effects on contraception, and it would have some really unfortunate and scary and threatening effects on women who are facing potentially life threatening pregnancies.”
Breland said dangers arise when the legalities that surface regarding the rights of embryos are left up to the interpretation of the personhood bill.
“The problem is, once we pass Personhood, we’re not in the realm of scientific evidence. We’re leaving it up to a judge,” she said.
She said the evidence of “real, legitimate, huge problems that would exist” under Personhood lies with medical professionals, and pro-life activists do not have that expert knowledge.
“So far all [Personhood supporters] have ever been able to say is, ‘Oh, that wouldn’t happen. Why? Because we said so.’ Well, you’ve got to make a better argument than that, and there isn’t one,” she said.
The argument that does exist, according to Breland, is that of the experts.
“I think [medical professionals] are a lot more reliable of a source than a group of people who, to be frank, don’t really care about patients with infertility or women with life-threatening complications,” she said.
John Daniels, Pastor at Life Church in Starkville, Miss., said seeking medical professionals’ expertise regarding the outcomes of Personhood is important. He said he deals more with the theological aspect of Personhood – the idea that life begins at conception. He said he supports the bill due to the biblical indication that life begins before birth.
“My understanding of scripture is that the Bible indicates that pre-born children are called children,” he said. “In the scripture there are several references to Jesus, to John the Baptist, to the prophet Jeremiah before they’re born, and it calls them things like ‘child.'”
Daniels said the majority of the church believes life begins at conception and that life deserves legal rights. The language of the Personhood initiative indicates that it upholds the general principles found in scripture, he said.
“(God) forming us in our mother’s womb indicates that our existence doesn’t really begin when we take the first breath as opposed to, you know, when we’re conceived,” he said.
Daniels said while he supported Amendment 26, he knows people had concerns about the potential unintended consequences of Personhood, a factor in its rejection in 2011.
“I didn’t feel that the particular amendment would ban things like in-vitro fertilization,” he said. “I felt like they had concerns, but I didn’t feel like the reading, I didn’t feel like that amendment would have necessarily had the ramifications that they feared, so I had no problem supporting it.”
Daniels said he does not know what, exactly, the bill would ban.
“I don’t know if I would be qualified to speak on any kind of legal ramifications,” he said. “A good place to get that kind of information I think would be crucial for people.”
In a statement released by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, science should be the contributing factor to decisions made regarding public health policy. According to their website, ACOG opposes personhood in order to protect women’s health.
ACOG’s website states states, “[Personhood] measures erode women’s basic rights to privacy and bodily integrity, deny women access to the full spectrum of preventive health care including contraception, and undermine the doctor-patient relationship.”
Despite these feared medical outcomes, Reed said Mississippi Personhood wants to focus on protecting human life through the new initiative.
“When is it alright to kill an innocent human being? My answer to that is, ‘It’s never alright,'” she said.
She said with increased clarity in its language, Personhood should pass this time around.
“I think we’ll garner (signatures) quickly, more quickly than last time,” she said.
If Mississippi Personhood is successful, November 2014 is the earliest date the measure could appear on the ballot in Mississippi.
Breland said she believes Mississippi voters listened well to both sides the first time, and they do not want to go through this again.
“Mississippians made a really smart decision, and to say ‘Oh, they got fooled by scare tactics’ … That’s insulting to the voters. I think people are smarter than that,” she said.