Take a bold stand for Women's Reproductive Health at the polls in November

WILLIAMS’s letter is riddled with misinformation. Ms. Williams states that miscarriage will not be considered a crime, while failing to mention a 15 year old girl was already charged in Mississippi with Depraved Heart Murder after miscarrying (December 2006). The Personhood Amendment would make it even more likely that prosecutors would go after women who have the misfortune to miscarry. 

Williams states that a woman who needed an abortion due to an ectopic pregnancy would be able to obtain one, but nowhere in the Mississippi State Constitution does it provide for the taking of one person’s life in order to save another person’s life. 26 merely defines a fertilized egg as a person; it does not write new laws for dealing with the new definition.  

Amendment 26 wouldn’t outlaw in vitro fertilization but the restrictions it would place on medical personnel make it highly unlikely that the procedure would be performed in Mississippi. 26 could also impact the use of birth control pills that make the lining of the uterus less receptive to the implantation of a fertilized egg and IUDs. 

Williams admits that victims of rape/incest would be forced to continue the pregnancy no matter the mental torture the woman might endure. She justifies this by saying there are millions of couples waiting to adopt, according to the Department of Health and Human Service as of 2009 there were 114,562 children in the United States available for adoption., 975 of them in Mississippi. Why haven't these children been adopted by one of the millions of couples Williams claims is waiting to adopt? 

Backers of Personhood USA are trying to paint the issue as an abortion debate, when it’s really about the reproductive health and freedom of women in Mississippi. Vote NO on 26.