Mississippi defeats controversial 'personhood' measure

A measure that would have given "personhood" rights to unborn babies proved too radical even for the Bible Belt state of Mississippi, which soundly defeated the thinly-veiled anti-abortion initiative. One year before the November 2012 elections were expected to see a flurry of similar efforts across the United States to give constitutional rights to embryos and fetuses, voters roundly rejected the proposed amendment to Mississippi's constitution. The so-called "personhood amendment," which would have granted rights to an embryo from the moment of conception and could have criminalized abortion, was similar to a measure rejected twice by voters in the state of Colorado. The measure known as "Initiative 26" not only would have made abortion illegal, but it would have effectively outlawed conventional birth control methods like IUDs and the morning-after pill. The measure reads: "Should the term 'person' be defined to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof?" Had the bill passed, abortion in Mississippi would have been made illegal even in the case of rape and incest. Official vote results have yet to be released, but by late Tuesday the "no" vote for the initiative had a double-digit lead with 60 percent of precincts reporting, according to the website of Mississippi's Clarion-Ledger newspaper. Mississippi's Republican Governor Haley Barbour expressed some reservations but nevertheless supported the measure, as did both major party gubernatorial candidates, including Republican Phil Bryant who won his bid to succeed Barbour. Bryant, currently the lieutenant governor, was quoted as telling supporters in the city of Tupelo earlier this week that "Satan wins" if the amendment was defeated, and calling controversy over the now-defunct measure "a battle of good and evil of Biblical proportions." Barbour meanwhile cast his vote in favor via an absentee ballot last week. "I think all in all, I know I believe life begins at conception. So I think the right thing to do was to vote for it," he said, although he has also in the past stated concerns about situations in which a pregnancy needs to be terminated to save the life of the mother. Colorado-based group Personhood USA is planning a drive to put similar measures on the ballot in Florida, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Nevada and California in November 2012, which could help ramp up a conservative push in what is expected to be a tough election year for President Barack Obama and other candidates from his Democratic party. "We believe that by legally changing the definition of what a person is, it can undermine Roe v. Wade and outlaw abortion," Personhood USA president Keith Mason said, referring to the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling giving women the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. Democratic National Committee head Debbie Wasserman Schultz said defeat of the "dangerous and divisive measure" in one of the nation's most conservative states allows abortion-rights supporters to "breathe a sigh of relief," but said "the fight is far from over" since other states are planning to try to pass similar measures. Bioethics and legal scholar Paul Lombardo, a professor at the University of Virginia and Georgia State University, said the "radical" Mississippi measure could have had wide-ranging legal repercussions. The amendment "would have an extraordinary impact on many features of the law, and it would also make things like birth control potentially criminal," he told AFP ahead of the vote. The New York based Center for Reproductive Rights late on Tuesday called the rejection of the measure a win for women. "Today's vote is a huge victory for anyone concerned about protecting our constitutional rights against erosion.  "It sends an unequivocal message to proponents of these measures that the American people, no matter the political perspective, will not stand for such blatant attacks on the health and constitutionally protected rights of women in this country," said the group's director Nancy Northrup. Outlawing such commonly used medical services "runs completely counter to the US Constitution, not to mention some of our most deeply held American political traditions and values," Northrup said. Outside a polling station in Jackson on Tuesday, voter Regina Madison was hopeful the initiative would pass, calling it "the first step for a national fight" to outlaw abortion. "I'm proud to vote today for (the) constitutional amendment that simply says that the baby has the legal rights of a person from the very beginning, from conception," she said.