On The Rejection Of The Personhood Amendment.

Drowned in the Mississippi River: The Personhood Amendment

And so the Mississippi referendum did not go as I – and, I am sure, many of you – had wished. What hurts more, the result was clearly in favour of those against the measure, whereas the polls indicated a close call.

It would appear that in the last days of the campaign, prominent pro-lifers have intervened and expressed their concerns about the initiative. I have written already about this, but the concerns may be summarised with the argument that you shouldn’t fight to win, because you may lose and be in a worse position than you were before.

I never cease to be amazed at such arguments. Did the participants of the “Boston tea party” reason that if the operation had failed, their cause might have been set back? What about the Independence war: isn’t it so, that if that war had been lost an even bigger yoke would have been imposed on the Colonies? More in general, what kind of reasoning is that, that one shouldn’t fight because he might, in theory, be worse off if he fights and lose?

How can it be explained that Planned Parenthood was clearly opposed to the initiative? If it had played in their hands, they should have chosen a lower profile, right? How can it be explained that President Obama hailed the defeat? Have these people all become covert pro-lifers?

And about the argument of the Supreme Court re-affirming Roe vs Wade: Roe vs Wade is in force now. It kills children now. It can’t kill them more after being upheld that it does at the moment. It’s not that 73% of a baby is aborted now, and this percentage would have been increased to 91% after a second sentence upholding Roe vs Wade. No, when a child is aborted , he dies to 100%. He ceases to live. He is no more.

So, it is difficult for me to see how avoiding a further controversy in the Supreme Court might help a child to be “aborted less”, or help the cause in any way. In the end, the United States are a democracy, and when the public opinion decides that it wants to go in a certain direction – with an amendment of the Constitution, if must be; more probably without – there is no need to persuade Supreme Court judges. And how can you get the “right” judges to the Supreme court, if not creating a climate hostile to abortion in the Senate that must approve them, or making it more difficult for a President to propose the election of pro-choice judges? How can a battle to raise the awareness of the Holocaust that is abortion be fought with the fear of letting the issue become a hotly contested, highly controversial one?

I am baffled, really. I think this was a victory of cowardice over hope. Not so much for the end result of the defeat, which might have happened anyway, but because of the way in which this defeat has been, in a word, deserved.

What is next, I wonder? No battle in defence of DOMA because if it is lost we might end up in a worse position than we are today? If you ask me, this is Chamberlain’s logic.

Again, I am baffled.

Mundabor