HERvotes Takes On the Mississippi “Personhood” Amendment

By Eleanor Smeal

Welcome to the fourth #HERVotes Blog Carnival! This time, we’re writing with an especially urgent focus. There’s an extremely dangerous constitutional amendment to the Mississippi state constitution on the November 8th ballot. It grants personhood and constitutional rights to a fertilized egg.

Election day is just one week away. We must stop the outrageous movement to give fertilized eggs more rights than women and girls.

The implications are staggering. By giving constitutional rights to a fertilized egg, the amendment could ban emergency contraception, birth control pills and IUDs as well as all abortions, even in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the woman or girl. It could eliminate medical choices for women, such as some cancer treatments or in vitro fertilization. It could allow the state to investigate and even prosecute a woman for a miscarriage. Undoubtedly it would lead to many court cases.

How to join the fight:

• You can help in this get-out-the-vote effort by urging everyone you know in Mississippi– your friends, family, co-workers, or members of groups you are affiliated with–to Vote No on Initiative 26.
• To take direct action, you can donate here to help the statewide Mississippi coalition campaign buy desperately needed television and radio ads.
• You can share the posts here on Twitter–hashtags #HERvotes and #NoOn26—and Facebook. If we spread the word far enough, we can reach every women’s-rights voter in Mississippi.

With your help, this outrageous Mississippi Initiative 26 will be defeated. The blog posts here share more reasons why we need to take action now. Happy reading, and thanks for fighting for women’s lives!

Part of the #HERvotes blog carnival.

Photo from the Mississippians for Healthy Families Facebook page.