One of the pieces of good news from yesterday's elections is the resounding defeat of the Christianist backed "personhood" constitutional amendment initiative that would have made every fertilized egg a "person" under Mississippi law. Thankfully, the measure lost by a wide margin and with the measure crashing and burning in backward Mississippi, one can only hope advocates of a similar effort here in Virginia will be deterred from pushing for legislation in the next session of the Virginia General Assembly. The size of the loss was in some ways the biggest surprise. As for those in the GOP who slavishly supported the measure in order to kiss the asses of the Christofascists behind the measure, let's hope they've learned a lesson that injecting pure religion based measures into the civil laws is not as popular as Christianists claim. Here are highlights from the Washington Post:A constitutional amendment that would have defined a fertilized egg as a person failed on the ballot in Mississippi on Tuesday, dealing the so-called “personhood” movement another blow. . . . . The amendment trailed 59 percent to 41 percent with more than half of precincts reporting. The Associated Press has said it will fail.
Opponents say that measure could have criminalized birth control, affected in vitro fertilization practices and even forced doctors to decline to provide pregnant cancer patients with chemotherapy for fear of legal repercussions.
“Personhood” supporters had tried to pass a similar measure in Colorado in 2008 and 2010, but voters in that state rejected it more than two-to-one both times.
The Jackson Clarion-Ledger also has coverage on the defeat of this religious extremism here.
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