Mississippi Personhood Amendment

Originally posted by gabrielleabelle at Mississippi Personhood Amendment

Okay, so I don't usually do this, but this is an issue near and dear to me and this is getting very little no attention in the mainstream media.

Mississippi is voting on November 8th on whether to pass Amendment 26, the "Personhood Amendment". This amendment would grant fertilized eggs and fetuses personhood status.

Putting aside the contentious issue of abortion, this would effectively outlaw birth control and criminalize women who have miscarriages. This is not a good thing.

Jackson Women's Health Organization is the only place women can get abortions in the entire state, and they are trying to launch a grassroots movement against this amendment. This doesn't just apply to Mississippi, though, as Personhood USA, the group that introduced this amendment, is trying to introduce identical amendments in all 50 states.

What's more, in Mississippi, this amendment is expected to pass. It even has Mississippi Democrats, including the Attorney General, Jim Hood, backing it.

The reason I'm posting this here is because I made a meager donation to the Jackson Women's Health Organization this morning, and I received a personal email back hours later - on a Sunday - thanking me and noting that I'm one of the first "outside" people to contribute.

So if you sometimes pass on political action because you figure that enough other people will do something to make a difference, make an exception on this one. My RSS reader is near silent on this amendment. I only found out about it through a feminist blog. The mainstream media is not reporting on it.

If there is ever a time to donate or send a letter in protest, this would be it.

What to do?

- Read up on it. Wake Up, Mississippi is the home of the grassroots effort to fight this amendment. Daily Kos also has a thorough story on it.

- If you can afford it, you can donate at the site's link.

- You can contact the Democratic National Committee to see why more of our representatives aren't speaking out against this.

- Like this Facebook page to help spread awareness.

ack

So, I just realized today there's only two weeks left until my spook_me fic is due, whoops. I should probably get on that. I still don't have much of an idea yet, really, but I should try and do some writing sprints or something, see what pops up. I'm still :D when I think about Jane Espenson replying to a tweet of mine about a sprint awhile back, omg. Yeah, I know, I'm easily amused or whatever, but that was awesome. :D

I'm also trying to think about what I want to do for NaNo this year and am coming up blank there as well. Last year I toyed with the idea of a Newfoundland zombie story (I still think making zombie!moose will be both HORRIFYING and LOL at the same time, haha XD), and I may give that some more thought again, but I still have no real idea how to make a story out of it. Initial thoughts are that everything's messed up and no flights are going in or out, but there's word that the ferries are still running so people make a dash for Argentia / Port aux Basques, or depending on the time of year just the latter (Argentia only runs for the short summer season here). I think that could work in general, maybe, just need some more ideas for characters and subplots, etc., hmmm. I'll ruminate on that some more too because wow, it's only less than a week after spook_me that NaNo starts omg.

[eta] Checked on NaNo and this will be my eighth time doing it, wow. That makes me feel old. XD If you'd have asked me what number attempt this would be for me, without checking I would've said fifth or sixth, I think, but nope!