NO on MS 26

Like many people with liberal leanings, I am pro-choice. Although I only agree with abortion under certain extreme circumstances, it is my belief that every woman should be in charge of her own body and make her own decision concerning whether to carry a child to term. It is neither okay for me to impose my own morals onto someone, nor for the government to mandate what a woman can and cannot do to her own body. Of course, this gets into the argument about abortion being an act against another and at what point a fetus is considered a person.

Under the proposed Personhood Amendment, a fetus in Mississippi would be considered a person from the moment of conception. The proposed amendment would read:

Be it Enacted by the People of the State of Mississippi: SECTION 1. Article III of the constitution of the state of Mississippi is hereby amended BY THE ADDITION OF A NEW SECTION TO READ: Section 33. Person defined. As used in this Article III of the state constitution, "The term 'person' or 'persons' shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof."

While this may sound well and good for those who are anti-abortion, consider this: the amendment in question would also undermines access to safe and reliable infertility medical treatments. After all, for in vitro fertilization (IVF), embryos are created (at which time, under the proposed legislation, they would be "people") and frozen. If an embryo is considered a person at the time of fertilization, IVF would be virtually impossible to administer in this state. Resolve.com, the site of the National Infertility Association, ask these questions:

• If one or more microscopic embryos from an IVF cycle do not develop normally in the lab or fail to result in live births after transfer (all natural events), could the physician, lab, and/or patient be criminally liable?


• Would non-IVF treatments such as simple inseminations be threatened because they carry a risk of miscarriage? (5)  Would clinics with high miscarriage rates after inseminations be at risk for criminal liability?  Could the miscarrying women be subject to criminal charges?


• Not all frozen embryos thaw successfully.  Could embryo freezing be prohibited as too risky?


• Will patients be prevented from donating their frozen embryos to research after they complete infertility treatments?


• Will patients’ medical records be subpoenaed to ensure that no one violated the embryos’ constitutionally guaranteed right to life?


• May women who live in states where personhood laws pass travel to other states for IVF, or would their embryos still be restricted by the law of their home state, such that doctors in no other states would offer her treatment?  Would she be forbidden to move any currently frozen embryos to another state to continue her treatment?


• If infertility patients in personhood states cannot afford to live in another state during treatment, will they simply have to forego the dream of having a family?

There are other issues as well:

Under state law, there are many places where "person" is referenced.

If more than five unrelated embryos/persons are housed in a single building, will it have to be licensed as a child residential care home?

In Pearl, there is an ordinance limiting occupancy to two persons in a bedroom. If a pregnant woman is two people, can she be in the same bed as her husband?

Moreover, IVF is not the only medical treatment that could be prevented by passage of the Personhood Amendment.

Effective treatment of tubal pregnancies, severe preeclampsia, and molar gestation could be prevented.

New stem cell treatments for patients with Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's disease, and cancers like leukemia and choriocarcinoma would also be at risk.

If a physician is faced with the choice of saving a woman's life or refusing to harm an embryo/person, could he or she be sued for malpractice no matter what choice was made?

Do Mississippians really want more lawyers interfering in a family's personal medical decisions? (source)

On November 8 I will be voting NO on MS 26. Not just because women deserve the right to terminate if that's their choice, but because women should have the right to have a family even when natural means of doing so are out.