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Politics
Target: Abortion Rights, Public Ed, LGBT Custody
Women's rights and public education topped the Mississippi legislative agenda as it rolled past the Jan. 19 deadline for filing bills and into the fourth week of the session, while …
Entry
Personhood is Back
By AnnaWolfeA previously failed proposal that aims to abolish abortion has resurfaced this legislative session.
State Rep. Randy Boyd, R-Mantachie, introduced a so-called Personhood bill in the form House Bill 1309, which would amend the state constitution to define a person as beginning at the moment of conception.
Boyd's bill number is reminiscent of a bill passed in 2012, House Bill 1390, which required physicians at abortion clinics to have admitting privileges to nearby hospitals.
Critics of Boyd's bill point to the failure to achieve a Personhood law through a statewide ballot initiative in 2011. During that drive, a proposed Personhood amendment to the state constitution failed to garner enough votes to become law. Later, in 2013, a group attempted to get the measure back on the ballot but missed a key deadline. Subsequent Personhood bills in the Legislature have also failed to gain traction.
Personhood has gained national attention not only because it would outlaw abortion in violation of the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, but because of the law's unintended consequences. Because such a law would also define a fertilized egg as a person, it could bring to question the legality of birth control pills, Plan B, and some methods of in-vitro fertilization, reproductive-justice advocates say.
The 2012 Mississippi admitting privileges law would have closed the last abortion clinic in the state, Jackson Women's Health Organization, because nearby hospitals refused to grant privileges to them. But the clinic fought the law, which resulted in a U.S. District Court striking it down. A federal appeals court upheld the decision and Mississippi's attorneys have not announced whether the state would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Politics
Another Do-Nothing Legislature?
For the past four years, I have read almost every bill presented to the House and Senate, and most of them are complete and utter nonsense.
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Two Hinds County Judge Runoffs Today
Today, some Hinds County voters are returning to the polls for two runoffs for two county judge seats.
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Editor's Note
Mississippi: Clawing to the Top
As we've all been riding high in recent weeks over the Mississippi State football team's meteoric rise on the media radar, we've all seen those tweets. You know, the anti-Mississippi …
Story
Fight For Women, Not Against Them
If our politicians are truly concerned about protecting women and children, they should abandon their relentless assault on abortion rights and tackle the real issues facing girls and women in …
Story
That’s Not How Pregnancy Works
Sit back for a moment and think back to the long gone days of 2011. That was the year many of us were either working to ensure Initiative 26 (better …
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Business
Loving All Over Hobby Lobby
In September 2012, the American Family Association sent an action alert to its followers, urging them to support Hobby Lobby in its quest to deny insurance coverage of some contraception …
Story
Cover
Inside the AFA: How One ‘Hate Group’ Is Fighting the ‘Gay Agenda’
At the American Family Association headquarters in Tupelo, Miss., a staff of about 130 produces radio programs and other media to promote its Christian ideology.
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Business
Hobby Lobby Ruling Could Spell Corporate Trouble
One of the basic problems that we have in this country is the structure of the modern corporation—particularly large, multi-national corporations.
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Dems Hope Decision Will Energize Female Supporters
Their Senate majority in peril, anxious Democrats have seized the Supreme Court decision that some companies need not provide birth control to women as fresh evidence of the GOP's "war …
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Birth Control Ruling Sparks Political Clash
Republicans called it a win for religious freedom. The decision of the Supreme Court, they said, is further evidence the country's new health care law is deeply flawed.
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Cover
Dudes We Dig
Jackson Free Press' 2014 Dudes We Dig consist of men who help their communities, including a veteran who is an veterans' advocate, a conservative baker who is fighting against the …
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Civil Rights
Moses: Jim Crow Still With Us in Education
Dr. Robert Moses Jr., an architect of the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project in 1964, connected the Jim Crow policies of the past with the underfunded education of today during his …
Story
Person of the Day
Sital Sanjanwala
This week, Jackson native Sital Sanjanwala, who now works for Fondren-based political consulting firm Chism Strategies, received Campaign & Elections magazine's Rising Star award for her work to help defeat …
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Personhood
No Life-at-Conception Proposal on '15 Miss. Ballot
Mississippians will not vote on a new ballot initiative that would declare life begins at conception.
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Personhood
Anti-Abortion Ballot Proposal Uncertain in Miss.
Organizers have little time left to push for a new Mississippi ballot initiative that would declare life begins at conception.
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Civil Rights
Using the KKK to Fight Abortion Rights
Groups such as the Ashburn, Va.-based Radiance Foundation have used ads to cast abortion as akin to genocide of African American children. Others are crying foul play.
Story
Bypass the Legislature on MAEP, Medicaid LGBT Rights
In the past six years alone, under a Republican-led Senate and, until 2012, a Democratic-led House of Representatives, MAEP has been shorted by more than $1 billion.
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Personhood
New Mississippi Abortion Ban Empty, Unscientific?
A female Mississippi senator is questioning a 20-week abortion ban that awaits signature from Gov. Phil Bryant, saying the bill is not grounded in medical fact.
