What should be the response to the Mississippi “Personhood” proposal?

Arena asked “Should Miss. ‘personhood’ proposal pass?” The answer is NO. And further….please read on to see what else I think about what the proposal means, and what should be done about it.

The Arena Asks: An initiative in Mississippi Tuesday would impose the country’s tightest regulations on abortion and birth control. Initiative 26 would change the definition of a person to include “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.”

Should the ‘personhood’ proposal pass?

My Answer: Everyone who is or has a mother, sister, woman friend, or daughter should vote against any candidate, Republican or Democrat, who fails to support a woman’s fundamental human right to make her own childbearing decisions–including whether to have a child or not. Period.

The current attacks on both birth control and abortion signal it’s well past time to go proactive for pro-choice and pro-reproductive justice legislation. It’s time to quit the interminable abortion debate and pass the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA).  FOCA is a civil rights act, thus a stronger guarantee of women’s reproductive rights than the Supreme Court’s now-weakened Roe v Wade decision.

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Here is the language of FOCA in its latest iteration:

(a) Statement of Policy- It is the policy of the United States that every woman has the fundamental right to choose to bear a child, to terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability, or to terminate a pregnancy after fetal viability when necessary to protect the life or health of the woman.

(b) Prohibition of Interference- A government may not–

(1) deny or interfere with a woman’s right to choose–

(A) to bear a child;

(B) to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability; or

(C) to terminate a pregnancy after viability where termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman; or

(2) discriminate against the exercise of the rights set forth in paragraph (1) in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information.

(c) Civil Action- An individual aggrieved by a violation of this section may obtain appropriate relief (including relief against a government) in a civil action.

FOCA is a sane, simple, and  just way to put the abortion debate to rest and let the wheels of government move on, unimpeded by the right wing anti-woman roadblocks that have kept us from fixing the economy, health care, education, and other essential social institutions.

Gloria Feldt

GLORIA FELDT is the New York Times bestselling author of several books including No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power, a sought-after speaker and frequent contributor to major news outlets, and the Co-Founder and President of Take The Lead. People has called her “the voice of experience,” and among the many honors she has been given, Vanity Fair called her one of America’s “Top 200 Women Legends, Leaders, and Trailblazers,” and Glamour chose her as a “Woman of the Year.”

As co-founder and president of Take The Lead, a leading women’s leadership nonprofit, her mission is to achieve gender parity by 2025 through innovative training programs, workshops, a groundbreaking 50 Women Can Change The World immersive, online courses, a free weekly newsletter, and events including a monthly Virtual Happy Hour program and a Take The Lead Day symposium that reached over 400,000 women globally in 2017.