One of the more watched ballot initiatives this week was the Mississippi Personhood initiative that would have granted full human civil rights to a fertilized human egg. Almost half of the voters were for this measure. Here’s the CBS report [1], but you can find it everywhere this week.
Basically, it would have outlawed most birth control and, of course, abortions.
The issue as I see it is the tension between the rights of a host and a guest. Should an unexpected guest be permitted to stay as long as they feel necessary, no matter how the host feels? What if the guest makes unreasonable demands, such as requiring up to half of your assets and most of your attention while living there? Note that the laws are set up to require you to support the guest for an additional 24 times as long as she stayed after she decides to move out.
But the inspiration behind this ballot initiative really was the need to make sure that Republicans get out to vote. It is a pity that the Democrats cannot figure out how to seed a ballot with an issue that will fire up their base in this manner. Maybe an ERA initiative would do; that hasn’t come up for a few decades.
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