Then they came for your birth control...

[Mohoss]

I'm not particularly familiar with this website, but a friend just posted a link to this article on Facebook.

The "personhood" amendment on the Mississippi ballot next week doesn't just ban all abortions—an issue that my colleague Tim Murphy has covered quite well. It would also likely outlaw several types of birth control and possibly make all forms of hormonal contraception illegal in the state.

Mississippi anti-abortion activists wants to define personhood as starting when a sperm fertilizes an egg. In that case, it would likely make intrauterine devices (IUDs), which can prevent pregnancy by blocking the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus, illegal. (IUDs can also prevent sperm from fertilizing the egg in the first place, and IUDs with hormones also operate much like regular old birth control pills, but that doesn't seem to matter to anti-abortion activists.)

The measure would also almost certainly make Plan B, also known as emergency contraception or the "morning after" pill, illegal. This high dose of hormones is used to prevent a woman from ovulating, but anti-abortion groups also insist that it can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting (despite the fact that the scientists say that's not the case). Needless to say, anti-abortion groups don't like Plan B very much, either.

But the law could also introduce the possibility of banning any form of hormonal birth control. Generally, "the pill" (as well as the shot, the patch, and the ring) work by stopping ovulation. But some anti-abortion groups argue that there can be failures on that front, and the doses of hormone could possibly also work by stopping implantation should an egg and sperm still manage to meet up.

Irin Carmon has an excellent piece on the implications over at Salon:

If this initiative passes, and fertilized eggs on their own have full legal rights, anything that could potentially block that implantation—something a woman's body does naturally all the time—could be considered murder. Scientists say hormonal birth-control pills and the morning-after pill work primarily by preventing fertilization in the first place, but the outside possibility, never documented, that an egg could be fertilized anyway and blocked is enough for some pro-lifers. Indeed, at least one pro-Personhood doctor in Mississippi, Beverly McMillan, refused to prescribe the pill before retiring last year, writing, "I painfully agree that birth control pills do in fact cause abortions."

This kind of slippery slope reasoning has long been a favorite rhetorical strategy of anti-abortion groups, and the personhood measure fits into the strategy they've been using around the country for years. And as Carmon highlights, this isn't an "unintended consequence" of a vague ballot measure—it's part of the goal of extreme anti-abortion activists in the state.

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/10/...ntrol-abortion

What is this I don't even....

[Dimmauk]

If a girl swallows, is it murder?

[Takedown3]

yes

[Demosthenes11]

If a girl swallows, is it murder?

sexy, sexy murder

[AidenCarby]

Oh Mississippi you never cease to amaze me with your bullshit.

[isladar]

I cannot read about this without becoming incensed to the point of inarticulation.

[Cail]

I cannot read about this without becoming incensed to the point of inarticulation.

basically this

[Mohoss]

I cannot read about this without becoming incensed to the point of inarticulation.

This was pretty much my initial reaction

[solanis]

my instant reaction is that this cannot possibly ever be passed

or am I putting too much faith in the hicks down south

[Gwynplaine]

Yes. The "personhood" movement is derived from the Catholic concept that the cells are literally defined as a "person" at the moment of fertilization. For their supporters drugs that fail to allow the egg to develop (female contraceptives and day after pills) are the same as actually murdering someone.

Their supporters pose and like to say that their laws however extreme wouldn't *actually* be carried out and followed literally as their implications allow. However that is no excuse when "personhood" laws allow punishment and even an implied potentiality of the death penalty for guilty mothers.

If you want to oppose them I strongly recommend reading the fantastic policy paper on "personhood" written by Diana Hsieh and Ari Armstrong: "The Personhood Movement is Anti-Life".

Link to PDF document: http://www.seculargovernment.us/docs/a62.pdf

[Callisto]

hell yeah, just what mississippi needs, more rednecks cranking out babies

[Callisto]

also I'm trying to gauge whether or not this means Mississippi is pro-rawdawggin', this might affect my stance on the issue

[Silenka]

obligatory let's help solve overpopulation by eradicating bible beaters and their attempts to contribute to it

[Odon]

It would be impressive if this passes, in the fact that even big Pharma can't stop religious nuts.

[Gwynplaine]

obligatory let's help solve overpopulation by eradicating bible beaters and their attempts to contribute to it

Cynical. But seriously that doesn't matter. Ever heard of the Quiverfull movement?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=102005062

[Yuri-G]

I cannot read about this without becoming incensed to the point of inarticulation.

this

[Outlaw]

my instant reaction is that this cannot possibly ever be passed

or am I putting too much faith in the hicks down south

You are.

[Ragnus]

Bible belt states are insane? News to me!

It's a slippery slope but nothing that won't get appealed and repealed by pro life advocates due to abortions being legal nationally.

[Gwynplaine]

Bible belt states are insane? News to me!

It's a slippery slope but nothing that won't get appealed and repealed by pro life advocates due to abortions being legal nationally.

That is actually part of the personhood law's intention. They are crafted to clash just enough so that they may serve as a catalyst to help overturn Roe v. Wade.

[Cantih]

There are days that I wonder if we can even make it through the next 50 years.

This is one of those days.