Children and “personhood”
Tomorrow, registered voters in Mississippi will vote on whether a fertilized egg is a person. Polling suggests that Proposition 26 just might pass.
I earned my bachelor’s degree in English and Media Studies (a fact I trot out often to assure people that my fascination with Jersey Shore is purely academic), not biology, so I turned to the internet to reveal to me just what in heck a “person” under this law would look like:
Interesting.
Minnesotans have a reputation for politeness, but we also have a fine tradition of asserting our superiority. One of my favorite local politicos, Matt Entenza, noted in a 2010 campaign ad that “if budget cuts were always the answer [to solving problems], then Mississippi would be a leader in this country.” HA! HA! HA! All snickering aside, Entenza forgot that Mississippi is, in fact, a nationwide leader in many issues affecting children–the kind of children that look like this:
- Mississippi has the nation’s highest rate of infant mortality, at 10.04 deaths per 1000 births.
- Mississippi children have the country’s highest obesity rate (21.9 percent).
- Mississippi children have the highest poverty rate in the country, at 21.9 percent.
I am not going to gloat about Minnesota’s relatively luckier children, because the fact that there are ANY kids living in poverty ANYWHERE is something that should nag the conscience of us all, no matter where we live.
I am unequivocally pro-choice. I have been ever since I was young enough to understand what reproductive rights meant, and I remained so during my two pregnancies. But I do allow that there is a scenario in which I could be convinced that abortion could be considered a social ill that required the careful attention of government.
Shocking, I know! So what on earth would that scenario be?
If every post-born child in America were ALREADY healthy, cared-for, well-educated and safe. Every single one. No child left behind, as it were.
As I wrote in my last post, I’m still waiting for living children to attain “personhood.” If abuse like that suffered by Hillary Adams is abolished forever, I could engage in a discussion about the “rights” of two-celled globules.
Let’s hope that tomorrow, Mississippians do the right thing for the already-living children in their state who desperately need them.
I’m also appalled at how much attention is given to the unborn children, and how both the mothers that bear them and the children after they’re born are virtually ignored by the very people insisting that every fetus be brought into being. If ALL the kids were cared for and sexual violence did not exist, I too might be pro-life. But I’m not, and poverty and violence are why.
Yes! Well said, Shannon. It is so strange to me that the majority of anti-choice groups are also the ones who denounce “welfare moms” and want to see social support for low-income families cut. That isn’t pro-life! Stop caring about zygotes more than you care for living, breathing children.