jadedmusings | It's Not All Bad

Some good news before I turn in for the night.

The state of Mississippi has now provided the answer to an interesting political test: How severe must a proposed piece of pro-life legislation be, for it to fail in the Deep South?

Voters on Tuesday rejected ballot Initiative 26, which would have defined personhood as beginning at fertilization. With 63% of the vote reporting, the ‘No’ position is leading by a margin of 57%-43%, and has been projected as the winner by the Associated Press.

The proposal, initiated through petitions by pro-life activists, would have outlawed not only abortion but many forms of birth control that can prevent the uterine implantation of a fertilized egg.

[...]

However, even in this very conservative and religious state, the ‘No’ campaign successfully mobilized against it by explaining to voters what such a law would mean if actually put into practice. For example, the proposal made no exceptions for abortion in the sensitive situations of rape or incest.

And what was more, such a law would have forbidden medically necessary abortions even in cases where a fetus could not be viable, and where a woman’s life would be at risk. The ‘No’ campaign successfully highlighted the example of an ectopic pregnancy, a condition where an embryo implants in the fallopian tubes rather than the uterus — resulting in a pregnancy that will not only fail to develop into a viable baby, but if left untreated will result in the woman’s death.

In some ways I hate that these things don't fail based on the idea that women have every right to obtain a legal medical procedure without any interference from the government, but in a year that's been extremely scary for women's rights, this was a bit of good news.