If you didn't know (ha), this has absolutely consumed my life for the past 2 months. I knew about it well before that, when I saw a commercial for it on TV well over a year ago and looked it up online. Here's the text:
Of course, realizing that there were no exceptions for life-threatening pregnancies, I was immediately concerned. But I assumed it would never pass, and didn't think about it much.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.
As soon as I found out it was on the ballot, I was all "wait a damn minute" and started scrapping. I was overwhelmed by the futility of fighting an anti-abortion bill in Mississippi, but I couldn't stop. If I get pissed about something, everyone's gonna know it. (To be fair, if I'm happy about something, everyone's gonna know it. I'm just a sharer, what can I say.) I started annoying people on my various social media outlets and in person.
When I started this, I felt alone. I knew I lived in the most conservative state in the country and I knew this would pass. I know the people I run with tend toward kinda liberal and I had faith in them, but I didn't think they'd fight it much because of how little hope we had.
I was so NOT alone. The more people heard about it, the more they realized it wasn't right either. Each time someone said "hey, this is too vague," I got more fuel to fight. I eventually got some AMAZING people on my side and helped form our own PAC (Parents Against MS 26) when we were all just kinda floundering around looking for how to fight it. That PAC, most remarkably the work of Atlee Breland, I believe, made up a HUGE part of what won our battle.
When I voted yesterday, I cried. It was overwhelming to me to stand in a room full of people who were actively voting on whether or not to take my rights away. When I was in the carpool line to pick Ace up from school and looked at the little girls walking out of the school and thought of the statistics that 1 in 4 of them would be sexually assaulted and may not have access to the morning-after pill if the amendment passed, I cried again.
But by golly, we won. 58-42. We protected the women, the children, the families of Mississippi. And for the first time in 2 months, I'm not scared. I know they'll try again. I know the legislature's going to go after it. But just for today, I'm not scared.
3 comments:
The legislature may go after it, but I bet they'll be a lot more thoughtful about how they word it. They can't ignore what this debate did to our state, which was UGLY, and the not exactly tight vote against it.
Isn't it amazing how the state voted in an overwhelming majority for conservative candidates, as well as the other two initiatives on the ballot but this one was defeated so soundly. I hope it sent a message that we CAN be a conservative voice that has a brain that works too.
I know you must be exhausted with all of your efforts. But I'm proud of you and glad to count you among my friends. Love you boo!
You know, Allison, I read something yesterday that made me think that maybe this wasn't so shocking. I don't think they targeted us so much for conservatism as religion, and didn't take into account how conservative - and anti-big government - we can be! When word got out and people started looking at it, they voted against more government control, not FOR abortion. I don't think P-USA took that into consideration. Or they thought we were too stupid to figure it out.
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