Mississippi Personhood Amendment

I've been in a position where getting pregnant would have been dangerous to me and probably doomed for the baby (after my uterine ablation but before my hysterectomy.) The idea that I would not be allowed to make a free decision to save my life, or that the (almost inevitable) miscarriage might have resulted in me being tried for murder, chills me to the bone. The type of birth control that was suggested to me as the best way to retain my uterus and stop my bleeding? It would be illegal under this law, because it suppresses ovulation but stops implantation. I would have been using it to help recover from debilitating anemia caused by a hormone imbalance.

This law has hidden consequences, not just to make abortion illegal, but to criminalize a wide swath of birth control options and potentially open a woman to a criminal murder charge if she miscarries in such a way that the authorities believe she was inducing an abortion. It's a bad law, in that it makes criminals of people who were victims of biology or just wanted to have control over their bodies.

Originally posted by gabrielleabelle at Mississippi Personhood Amendment

Okay, so I don't usually do this, but this is an issue near and dear to me and this is getting very little no attention in the mainstream media.

Mississippi is voting on November 8th on whether to pass Amendment 26, the "Personhood Amendment". This amendment would grant fertilized eggs and fetuses personhood status.

Putting aside the contentious issue of abortion, this would effectively outlaw birth control and criminalize women who have miscarriages. This is not a good thing.

Jackson Women's Health Organization is the only place women can get abortions in the entire state, and they are trying to launch a grassroots movement against this amendment. This doesn't just apply to Mississippi, though, as Personhood USA, the group that introduced this amendment, is trying to introduce identical amendments in all 50 states.

What's more, in Mississippi, this amendment is expected to pass. It even has Mississippi Democrats, including the Attorney General, Jim Hood, backing it.

The reason I'm posting this here is because I made a meager donation to the Jackson Women's Health Organization this morning, and I received a personal email back hours later - on a Sunday - thanking me and noting that I'm one of the first "outside" people to contribute.

So if you sometimes pass on political action because you figure that enough other people will do something to make a difference, make an exception on this one. My RSS reader is near silent on this amendment. I only found out about it through a feminist blog. The mainstream media is not reporting on it.

If there is ever a time to donate or send a letter in protest, this would be it.

What to do?

- Read up on it. Wake Up, Mississippi is the home of the grassroots effort to fight this amendment. Daily Kos also has a thorough story on it.

- If you can afford it, you can donate at the site's link.

- You can contact the Democratic National Committee to see why more of our representatives aren't speaking out against this.

- Like this Facebook page to help spread awareness.