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Personhood amendment rejected in Mississippi

NoOn26.jpgVoters in the state of Mississippi have decided that a fertilized egg should not be given the legal rights and privileges of an infant or adult human.

With two-thirds of precincts reporting following today’s state-wide election, it seems that the vote is about 57% against Initiative 26 — a ballot measure that proposes to amend the state’s constitution to redefine ‘person’ as “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the equivalent thereof”.

Such an amendment would have criminalized abortion in the state in most, if not all, circumstances. Some opponents of the initiative were also concerned about its implications for in vitro fertilization (IVF), some forms of birth control, and for human embryonic-stem-cell research (see Mississippi to vote on ‘personhood’ ).

“We’re proud that the people of Mississippi looked at the facts and made the decision that this is a dangerous and extreme government intrusion into people’s lives,” Stan Flint, a consultant for Mississippians for Healthy Families, based in Jackson, told Nature.

The 8 November election is the third time a personhood amendment has gone to the polls in the United States. In 2008 and 2010, similar initiatives were voted on in Colorado and neither passed. The amendments earned, respectively, 27% and 29% of the vote. Although Initiative 26 was unsuccessful, it looks to have earned a higher percentage of ‘yes’ votes than any similar measure. This could boost efforts to get personhood amendments on the ballot in several more states for elections in November 2012.

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