State legislatures across the United States are in the process of redefining personhood to circumvent the Roe v. Wade court case, which permits abortion.

The state at the center of the issue is Mississippi, where anti-abortion legislation has traction. On Nov. 8, Mississippi will vote on a state constitutional amendment on whether to define personhood as a fertilized human egg. If passed, the law would ban abortion.

Birth control that interferes with a fertilized egg from being implanted, such as the ‘morning after’ pill, would be outlawed. Exceptions for rape or incest do not exist under these laws. Nor is the health of the woman bearing the pregnancy an exception. If enacted, this law would give government excessive control over personal health decisions.

The proposed amendment is not clear on what exceptions exist. Too much is unknown about its effects. It is inappropriate to allow the government to tell women what to do with their pregnancy. Whether one believes that a cluster of cells constitutes a person is irrelevant when the amendment threatens basic well-being of those already born.

Those in favor of the amendment, Initiative 26, claim that ‘scare tactics’ are being used to prevent the law from passing, according to yeson26.net. The group also said the law will not outlaw contraceptives, end in-vitro fertilization or result in prosecution for miscarriages.

Freda Bush, an ob-gyn featured in a video on the group’s website said, ‘Amendment 26 is a scientific and moral issue, not a political one. Science confirms that a person is a human being at the moment of fertilization.’ Science may confirm that the genetic material and the few cells at the beginning of development are, in fact, human. However, a ‘person’ can be interpreted as a much more abstract concept.

Bush said in a press conference that the law would not criminalize miscarriage. She called the rumor ‘silly and cruel.’ She also said, ‘Women were not prosecuted before for miscarriages and will not be prosecuted now.’

Yet, her affirmation alone is not nearly enough to silence rumors. Bush does not speak for all medical professionals in Mississippi. She is only one of a handful of doctors who believe the initiative will not affect most birth control and health decisions. Simply stating that the amendment will not change anything is not enough.

The amendment states that a person is ‘every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning of the functional equivalent thereof.’ There are no other elaborations to the amendment. This can be reasonably interpreted to mean that miscarriage would be a criminal offense. The language makes no exceptions for miscarriages or affecting confidentiality between doctors and patients.

Mississippians for Healthy Families, a group that opposes the initiative, shares this concern. The group argues the initiative ‘could ban common forms of birth control like the pill.’ The initiative also would not make exceptions for cases of rape, incest or if the mother’s life is threatened.

Those in favor of the legislation argue that abortions should be outlawed for moral reasons. Several women on the Yes on 26 website share their regrets in getting an abortion. One of these women, Audrey Cornwell, had an abortion at 18. She said abortion has ‘torn families.’ She fails to recognize, though, that not having an abortion may equally tear a family apart.

Others make the argument that the Bible clearly opposes abortion. Les Riley, a sponsor to the amendment, said, ‘God tells us that a person is a person no matter how small.’ We need only look at other countries that govern according to religious documents to know that doing so is foolish.

Harmen Rockler is a junior newspaper journalism and political science major. His column appears every Monday. He can be reached at horockle@syr.edu. 

Published on October 30, 2011 at 12:00 pm