Mississippi Personhood Amendment

Originally posted by gabrielleabelle at Mississippi Personhood Amendment:

Okay, so I don't usually do this, but this is an issue near and dear to me and this is getting very little no attention in the mainstream media. 

Mississippi is voting on November 8th on whether to pass Amendment 26, the "Personhood Amendment". This amendment would grant fertilized eggs and fetuses personhood status.
Putting aside the contentious issue of abortion, this would effectively outlaw birth control and criminalize women who have miscarriages. This is not a good thing.

Jackson Women's Health Organization is the only place women can get abortions in the entire state, and they are trying to launch a grassroots movement against this amendment. This doesn't just apply to Mississippi, though, as Personhood USA, the group that introduced this amendment, is trying to introduce identical amendments in all 50 states. 

What's more, in Mississippi, this amendment is expected to pass. It even has Mississippi Democrats, including the Attorney General, Jim Hood, backing it. 

The reason I'm posting this here is because I made a meager donation to the Jackson Women's Health Organization this morning, and I received a personal email back hours later - on a Sunday - thanking me and noting that I'm one of the first "outside" people to contribute. 

So if you sometimes pass on political action because you figure that enough other people will do something to make a difference, make an exception on this one. My RSS reader is near silent on this amendment. I only found out about it through a feminist blog. The mainstream media is not reporting on it. 

If there is ever a time to donate or send a letter in protest, this would be it.
What to do?
- Read up on it. Wake Up, Mississippi is the home of the grassroots effort to fight this amendment. Daily Kos also has a thorough story on it.
- If you can afford it, you can donate at the site's link.
- You can contact the Democratic National Committee to see why more of our representatives aren't speaking out against this.
- Like this Facebook page to help spread awareness.

Heartbeat Bill

From 10 TV:

"COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio House of Representatives approved a bill on Tuesday that would impose the strictest limit on abortions in the U.S. 

House members approved the bill with a 54-43 vote, 10TV's Tanisha Mallett reported.

The bill would ban abortions after the first detectable fetal heartbeat, and that occurs sometimes as early as six weeks into pregnancy.

The Republican-led chamber scheduled votes Tuesday on two other bills. One prohibits abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy if a physician determines the fetus would be able to survive outside the womb. Another prevents certain health insurers from covering abortions.

Heartbeats can sometimes be detected as early as six weeks into pregnancy, ahead of the point where the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled it unconstitutional for states to limit abortions.

Pro-abortion rights groups and lawmakers planned to protest the votes. 

Watch 10TV News and refresh 10TV.com for continuing coverage."

 If a woman didn't even find out she was pregnant until around week six or later, it may already be too late for her to have an abortion according to this bill, thus nearly banning abortion in the state altogether. Fortunately it still has to pass the Senate so this is not set into law yet.

Ohio's "Heartbeat" Bill

Via AlterNet:

Any one of the three bills would be a devastating blow to reproductive health access for women in Ohio. But of the three, it is the “Heartbeat” bill that truly has the potential to change the landscape of anti-choice legislation if it passes. The bill manages to almost completely outlaw abortion in a way we have only seen before in “Personhood” amendments--such as the one that was solidly rejected twice by the voters in Colorado. 

By establishing heartbeat as the criteria for banning abortion, the bill effectively rejects abortion from any point after roughly four weeks post conception, a time in which fetal heartbeat can be seen via high quality ultrasound machine. For most women, that would provide a window of two weeks or less in order to learn she was pregnant, make her decision about the pregnancy, arrange for an appointment, gather money for an abortion, obtain the mandatory counseling and sit through the required 24 hour waiting period. For a woman with irregular menstrual cycles, by the time she realizes she is pregnant it likely would already be too late to do anything but continue the pregnancy.

There are two other bills as well; however, the "Heartbeat" bill, as stated above in the quote from AlterNet, is the most severe. If a woman does not discover she is pregnant until after that four week window, her choice is essentially taken away from her as far as the law is concerned.