mississippi and yet more stupidity with "personhood"

[velkyn]

(pardon if there is a thread already on this,  I looked around and used the search and found nothing) well, we have Mississippi all set to declare fertilized eggs as 'people'.   Of course, once they really are people, the idiots who will voate for this won't give a damn about them, since good ol' Miss is consistently dead last in education, health care, etc. 

There are various good blog posts about this bit of stupidity but some of the posed problems with this proposed law strike me as rather amusing:

can fertilized eggs be claimed for tax purposes? 

How does this work with the claim that declaring this "personhood" won't need to use revenue to be enforced?  Seems like we'll need hordes of people making sure women aren't willfully having miscarriages.  We'll need more coroners, more pathologists, more gynecologists to watch each and every uterus, more guards to watch every woman everywhere to make sure that they dasn't do anything "harmful".  Indeed, everytime a woman menstruates, there will have to be an investigation!  Every woman's health records must be reviewed to make sure that they don't have an IUD etc. 

We'll need to chain down every "unfit" mother so the zygote can be raised to the state's speficications.   

what if the zygote is gay?  Then can we declare it not a person anymore?

can zygotes sue? 


please feel free to add your own....

[pianodwarf]

Will Mississippi thus be celebrating "Conception Days" instead of birthdays?  And since the date of conception can't be specifically determined, how would this work?

If the minimum age to get a learner's permit for driving is 15, will passing this law mean that kids as young as 14 years and 3 months past the date of their birth will be eligible for permits?  (Same question for drinking, voting, seeing R-rated movies, consenting to sex, retirement age, and probably a bazillion other things.)

Does forcing the fetus to stay in the uterus for nine months constitute wrongful imprisonment?

And my personal favorite, which is not ridiculous and is actually a real risk, in my opinion: will the police investigate your miscarriage?

[screwtape]

will the police investigate your miscarriage?

you can count on it
http://www.care2.com/causes/georgia-rep-investigate-miscarriage.html

[velkyn]

yep, have to get the police up in everyone's cooches.  So much for the lie that these self-proclaimed conservatives are all for less gov't interference.  They are for as much as possible if it advances their desires.  A theocratic police state that treats all women as possible criminals is what seems to be considered an ideal by them. 

[Nick]

Miss is the poorest state in the nation with the poorest educational system.  This sounds like a great thing to waste money and time on.  It is clearly unconstitutional and will be struct down in no time.  What is wrong with Southern states?

[rev45]

If the fertilized egg is a person and if a miscarriage occurs, do the parents of the "person" have to have a proper funeral for it?  I don't know about Mississippi but here in Illinois you must purchase a burial plot and a vault for the corpse which I think comes to a minimum of around $3000.  The funeral industry will be booming in Mississippi.

[albeto]

Seems like we'll need hordes of people making sure women aren't willfully having miscarriages.  We'll need more coroners, more pathologists, more gynecologists to watch each and every uterus, more guards to watch every woman everywhere to make sure that they dasn't do anything "harmful".  Indeed, everytime a woman menstruates, there will have to be an investigation!  Every woman's health records must be reviewed to make sure that they don't have an IUD etc. 

The christian answer to creating jobs for the economy.

[pianodwarf]

If the fertilized egg is a person and if a miscarriage occurs, do the parents of the "person" have to have a proper funeral for it?  I don't know about Mississippi but here in Illinois you must purchase a burial plot and a vault for the corpse which I think comes to a minimum of around $3000.  The funeral industry will be booming in Mississippi.

Relatedly, if personhood begins at conception, can you take out life insurance right after conception?  Since roughly one out of every three pregnancies ends in miscarriage, a million-dollar policy on your zygote sounds like a pretty good bet, especially since you can just cancel the policy after the baby is born.

[jaimehlers]

Murphy must be laughing his head off at this stuff.

[Nick]

If the fertilized egg is a person and if a miscarriage occurs, do the parents of the "person" have to have a proper funeral for it?  I don't know about Mississippi but here in Illinois you must purchase a burial plot and a vault for the corpse which I think comes to a minimum of around $3000.  The funeral industry will be booming in Mississippi.

Relatedly, if personhood begins at conception, can you take out life insurance right after conception?  Since roughly one out of every three pregnancies ends in miscarriage, a million-dollar policy on your zygote sounds like a pretty good bet, especially since you can just cancel the policy after the baby is born.

Now, that is a million dollar idea !!!!

[mrbiscoop]

Doesn't Mississippi spend less on education than any other state?

[kcrady]

Now, what I wonder is, can an embryo be a corporation?  Or, wait: if you, and some of your friends are planning to found a corporation, when does your corporation become a "person?"  When you file the papers, or maybe when you first come up with the idea?  Obviously, waiting until the incorporation is actually approved would be sanctioning the abortion of who knows how many corporate people by Big Government, and we can't have that.  At the very least, we need government to acknowledge that a corporation is a person, not a choice, so any time a group of people get together and call themselves the Board of Directors of a corporation, government should recognize its personhood and its rights to bribe politicians with campaign donations.

[rev45]

^According to Mitt Romney, corporations are people.

[jedweber]

Most analysts are saying this is going to create a legal nightmare:

Mississippi 'Personhood' Law Could Cause Legal Mayhem, Experts Warn
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/07/mississippi-personhood-la_n_1079710.html

Even the governor expressed all kinds of concerns and misgivings. Then he revealed he voted FOR it anyway. After all, he can't have people calling him a baby-killer!

[ungod]

This law is woefully inadequate. Protecting the unborn child is one thing, but WHAT ABOUT THE MILLIONS OF UNFERTILIZED CHILDREN!
Human life is SACRED. Eggs and sperm are alive, and are HUMAN LIFE. Male masturbators
are mass murderers on a scale that would make Pol Pot or Henry Kissinger green with envy. Women who expel their eggs and allow them to die a horrible slow agonizing death should be charged with failing to provide the necessities of life.
STOP THE SLAUGHTER - write to your Republican representative now.
If you are guilty of "spilling the seed", rush it to your nearest Catholic, Republican or sperm bank - they will know how to save it.

[Morgan]

This law is woefully inadequate. Protecting the unborn child is one thing, but WHAT ABOUT THE MILLIONS OF UNFERTILIZED CHILDREN!
Human life is SACRED. Eggs and sperm are alive, and are HUMAN LIFE. Male masturbators
are mass murderers on a scale that would make Pol Pot or Henry Kissinger green with envy. Women who expel their eggs and allow them to die a horrible slow agonizing death should be charged with failing to provide the necessities of life.
STOP THE SLAUGHTER - write to your Republican representative now.
If you are guilty of "spilling the seed", rush it to your nearest Catholic, Republican or sperm bank - they will know how to save it.

Not to mention those purely evil people who willingly engage in cannibalism! Think of all the white middle class Christian^(TM) men who'd love nothing more than to create wonderful life with their seed, but alas, the infernal succubi they're with insist on literally devouring their seed. 

[jaimehlers]

A statement in that latest article jumped out at me, that people would trust lawmakers to figure out how the amendment would work.  Talk about naive.

[IAmFirst]

VERY glad this didn't pass! Know why it was rejected? When people vote, they're individuals in a voting booth and not in a church. Plus, I'm betting that most would think about a female relative or friend for having been raped, had incest or just had a crappy father. They thought of the horror the'd be sentenced to and woke up.

If you are a woman in Mississippi and actually voted "YES" on 26, I feel very, very sorry for you. Shame on you.

[IAmFirst]

One other thing: We have a new and huge example of religious fallacies and hypocrites. This "god" they worship on every street corner in the Ole Miss is the largest abortionist in the history of their world. I still say being pro-life is anti-god. (or anti-woman, as George Carlin said)

[Fiji]

oh, just imagine, 35 years down the line, if this had passed, a democrat from Miss runs for president. He's elected and the republicans complain because he's not a natural conceived American! He was conceived on a trip to Rome!

[Historicity]

With 96% of precincts reporting Mississippi voted down the Personhood Amendment 58% to 42%.

[Nick]

Yes, but in the mind of the fundies this is just a minor set back.  They will keep bringing it up and it will spread to other southern states.

[ungod]

With 96% of precincts reporting Mississippi voted down the Personhood Amendment 58% to 42%.

Certainly not a cause for a victory celebration. AAMOF, downright SCAREY that 42% (and that's getting perilously close to half...) of the voting morons were in favour of this "back to the dark ages and inquisition" law.
Imagine, in this time of recession/depression, joblessness, youth with no future, and this is what the dirty judas betraying treasonous treacherous scum who pretend to represent you concern themselves with. Unbelievable!
It's time that the small minority of people who can still think found a "homeland", and let the rest carry on in their race back to the stone age.

[plethora]

Back to the ridiculous implications of considering an embryo a 'person' ...


Would it be child abuse if a pregnant woman has sex or masturbates while carrying a fertilized embryo?

[velkyn]

oh, just imagine, 35 years down the line, if this had passed, a democrat from Miss runs for president. He's elected and the republicans complain because he's not a natural conceived American! He was conceived on a trip to Rome!

good point.  Just how would "citizenship" have been decided?

Oh the excuses that must be flying on why RealTrueHonestChristian^tm prayers weren't answered by God in getting this law passed. 

[Historicity]

BTW, in some Catholic countries ----

Poland.  You do not celebrate your birthday but your baptismal day.

South America.  Many people when asked their age calculate it from their birth day + 9 months to date it from conception.

[screwtape]

I've said before, the pro-choice crowd has to go on offense and make similar (but opposite) proposals of their own.  They need to keep up PR and keep pushing the unwashed massed in the other direction. 

If they keep playing defense forever, eventually they are going to lose.  The lunatic wing in the supreme court is licking their chops over an abortion case so they can over turn it.  None of the bush appointees agree with the concept of "settled law" when it comes to topics with which they disagree.

[jynnan tonnix]

BTW, in some Catholic countries ----

Poland.  You do not celebrate your birthday but your baptismal day.

I don't know whether this is an alternate tradition, but as far as I know (and I am Polish), the day celebrated, "imieniny" is your namesday...the holy day of the saint you were named after. Maybe with so many more ecumenical names becoming more popular, the custom may have changed.

I'm not actually sure when my namesday is exactly anyway...we still celebrated it when I was little, partially because my actual birthday (Jan 2) fell so close to Christmas while my namesday was, I believe, sometime in May. I was baptised the same day I was born as I was 2 months premature, and it was uncertain as to whether I would survive.

On a side note, my twin sister did not survive, so, according to Christian logic, is now safely in heaven, while I have become a godless, hellbound heathen.

[velkyn]

On a side note, my twin sister did not survive, so, according to Christian logic, is now safely in heaven, while I have become a godless, hellbound heathen.

indeed, you dared to you use your brain.