Jessica Arons: Mississippians rightfully reject Personhood Amendment

  Mississippi voters yesterday soundly defeated Initiative 26, the so-called Personhood Amendment, by a margin of 58 percent to 42 percent. The vague proposition, which would have defined a fertilized egg as a person, threatened a multitude of untold consequences. The Mississippi constitution alone has 9,000 references to the word “person,” aside from the number of times it appears in state statutes.

But the known consequences were numerous and chilling:

    A total ban on abortion in all circumstances
    A ban on most forms of birth control, including the pill and emergency contraception
    A ban on many aspects of common fertility treatments
    A ban on stem cell research