Mississippi Personhood Amendment

[keristor]

As smallship1 said, as a Brit I can't reasonably tell Americans what to do. However, as a person I can help to spread the word to those who are in a position to do something.

Incidentally, I looked this up (since it seems to be spreading as a single-source meme), and link to the page of Personhood USA about the bills they are promoting -- the Mississippi

Comments

[madfilkentist]

I found a good Huffington Post article on the amendment. It notes, among other things, that Democrats in Mississippi aren't speaking out very strongly against it and that fertilized ova would count toward population numbers for voting districts. Maybe that's the reason for the amendment; it would greatly increase Mississippi's population, and thus its representation in Congress, at one fell swoop!

[oreouk]

I read that article this morning too and my reading of it was that there were likely to be a host of unintended consequences of enacting this amendment, including the one that you cite here, not that it would definitely result in this.

I'm big on telling my children that actions have consequences and that you own your consequences even if they are not the ones that you expected when you took the action. There is huge potential for this to be a classic example of that.

[keristor]

Interesting, is it just raw population (and not voters or adults) which influences that representation? That seems weird.

Thanks for the pointer. I like the HuffPost, they seem to be reasonably balanced and sensible; there was some talk of them doing a UK edition and if so I might actually subscribe (be the first time I've ever subscribed to a newspaper if so).

[madfilkentist]

For allocating representation in the US, it's population regardless of status at the federal level, and I believe universally or almost so at the state level.

[cmcmck]

And of course the women concerned aren't people and have no rights. We're just bodies to be controlled by the patriarchy and kyriarchy.

Grrr! :o(

Btw, there is now a UK edition of the HP.

[valydiarosada]

Elizabeth Moon discusses this in detail in her lj. According to her, this bill would criminalise spontaneous natural miscarriages.