A Person’s a Person, Unless She Has a Vagina

Tomorrow, Mississippi voters get the chance to build themselves a legislative time machine and go back to the good old days. Those golden, glory, Comstock years, when us uppity lady-folk knew our place and were forcibly kept there by constant child-bearing followed by premature death. Tomorrow, Mississippi voters get to weigh in on Proposition 26, an amendment to the state constitution that codifies the definition of person to include “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or equivalent thereof.”

The goal, obviously, is to criminalize abortion. As an added bonus, it might help limit access to birth control such as the pill and the IUD. If you were thinking about IVF in MS, you better get prepared to carry a litter, as otherwise I guess you will just have to keep your untransferred “people” in your freezer forever. You might be relieved to know that the Yes on 26 people assure us that they will not be investigating women for miscarrying, but I have a hard time believing the word of people who equate an eight-celled embryo to an entire human being.

What I do know is what they say themselves:

“Should the amendment pass, the fetus’ right to life is not greater than the mother’s right to life. Both would be equal. If both lives cannot be saved, then the doctor could save the mother’s life even if the fetus dies.

Well, great! The doctor can do so! Fucking-A! That’s not so. . .

Wait a second. He could do so. Doesn’t have to. Can. What if, say, I’m a lesbian? Or a drug addict? What if, in my doctor’s infinite wisdom, he decides I’m not using my personhood to good effect? Does that mean, then, that he can sacrifice ME for the Proto-Person swimming in my gut? Can I appeal? To whom? How fucking sick do I have to be before my doctor can make a defensible decision to end my pregnancy?

Let’s say I have an ectopic pregnancy that isn’t viable, but might fucking kill me or destroy any future fertility? Does my doc need to wait until I’m on death’s door to give god-almighty the chance to miracle this shit into place? What if I don’t agree?

They don’t fucking know. They don’t fucking care, either.  Scew’em all and let the judges sort it out.

I do know this, though.  I know that an eight-celled blastocyst is not a person. I know that criminalizing abortion does nothing to improve the life of the children who are born, while it does increase the chance for a woman with an unwanted pregnancy to die.

They should have just gone ahead and amended the constitution with what they really meant, “Should the term ‘person’ be defined to exclude every human being without a penis?”