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Gambit > bestofneworleans.com > noVember 15 > 2011
Parenthood and make birth control difficult to obtain,” she said. “Do we really want to ask young men and women to sneak across the border to get birth control?”
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The Rev. Mark Anthony Williamson, pastor of New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, spoke briefly at the JSU town hall meeting. He said he was pro-life and opposes the Personhood amendment. He’s not the only spiritual leader against Initiative 26. Others include the Rev. Hope Morgan Ward, bishop of the Mississippi Conference of the United Methodist Church, and the Rev. Duncan M. Gray III, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi. Attendees at the JSU town-hall meeting wrote questions on index cards for the panel to answer. Most of the questions were practical economic concerns. Would a Personhood amendment mean that a father would have to start paying child support sooner? “Maybe,” Bear Atwood said. The farreaching implications could affect inheritance laws also. Atwood said even donating sperm would have ramifications. Citizenship would also require redefining. The questions kept coming. Would you have to get a Social Security number for your fertilized egg? Could you count your egg as a deduction on your tax return? “Now we get the IRS involved,” Atwood said. “You guys want to bring the IRS in your bedroom?” Atwood said there’s a reason why church and state for centuries have used one simple moment in time to define personhood. “Birth is a concrete moment,” she said. “They can put a time on it. They can put a place on it.” Dr. Paul Seago finds it absurd that under Initiative 26, a carcinoma could have the same rights as his teenage daughter. Seago, who practices gynecologic oncology in Jackson, spoke at a news conference Oct. 7 at the Capitol. He and Hines, the infertility physician who treated Atlee Breland, represented the group Mississippi Doctors Against 26. They called Initiative 26 a law of unintended consequences. “We as doctors will have to deal with these consequences,” Seago said. “This initiative is bad for the practice of medicine, bad for women’s health and bad for Mississippi families.” Seago said the measure could eliminate common birth control options. Supporters of the measure have said otherwise, suggesting an emotional overreaction from their political opponents. The doctors said identifying the moment of fertilization is not so simple. “We have no test to know exactly when this happens,” Seago said. “We also know that more than 40 percent
of the time, the fertilized egg will fail to develop past this early stage, even in optimal circumstances.” In-vitro options for infertile couples could be illegal under the amendment, Hines said. “Mississippians face some of the worst health outcomes in the nation,” he said. “Health care teams with best practices should decide what is best, not politicians and lawyers.” If Personhood became law, malpractice premiums would rise for Mississippi doctors because they could face criminal charges for providing the best care for individual patients, Hines argued. He also pointed out that the measure doesn’t allow pregnancy termination even in cases of rape and incest. Jonathan Will, an assistant professor and head of MC’s Bioethics and Health Law Center, moderated the symposium, “Exploring the Implications of Mississippi’s Personhood Initiative.” An embryologist explained the basic physiology of fertilization. Dr. Michael Tucker, who is an in-vitro fertilization pioneer and top expert, showed pictures of an incubator, a cell freezer and cryo tanks. He said 450 infertility clinics now operate in the United States. “Our business is to bring two gametes together,” he said. Of the 100 to 200 million sperm released, only 1 to 100 wind up in the fallopian tube. In-vitro fertilization doctors select the best quality sperm for the oocyte, or egg cell. He showed a short video clip of a glass micro needle poking an egg to place a single sperm in its cytoplasm. He called this the beginning of the initialization affect. The first day, the zygote forms. The second day, it becomes a four-cell entity. On the third day, it grows to eight cells and is only about 120 microns wide. That’s one-tenth of a millimeter, just less than the width of a strand of hair. Day four and five, the eight-cell entity becomes a morula. Then, sometime between the fifth and seventh day, the morula becomes the blastocyst. “We treat these microscopic entities with respect,” Tucker said. “For the first three days, the egg is running on its own maternal quest.” He said the sperm doesn’t do much except be there during these early stages. “The fertilization event is extremely extensive. It’s not a simple discrete moment in time,” he said. It takes 38 hours for the four-cell entity to emerge. It’s 50 hours of development before the sperm has any involvement. At 70 hours of development, the entity blossoms into segments like a soccer ball. On the fifth, sixth and seventh days, the inner cell mass starts to form. “Everything before this is pre-embryo,” Tucker said.
“It’s difficult to conceive of that entity as an individual.” Stephen Crampton, vice president of legal affairs and general counsel for Liberty Counsel, a national nonprofit policy group that opposes abortion rights, told the symposium that the use of terms is significant. “Definitions set the stage and set the tone,” he said. As an example he said others had coined the term “pre-embryo” to reduce the status of an unborn child, and he called the term “reproductive rights” a “loaded euphemism.” But to him, “personhood” is simple. “Personhood is nothing more than to return to a principle foundation stone,” he said. “There is a moment male and female chromosomes come together.” The principle of personhood “would not automatically outlaw abortion,” he said. Glenn Cohen, assistant professor of law at Harvard Law School, jumped in via Skype on a large screen near the panel of experts. “I’m going to call a spade a spade here,” Cohen interjected. “You really think it will have nothing to do with abortion?” Rebecca Kiessling, a Michigan attorney who identifies herself as “conceived in rape,” addressed the legal implications. She suggested all parties would have to wait out the courts as the Personhood Initiative went through the legal system. Caitlin Borgmann, a professor at City University of New York School of Law, challenged Kiessling and Crampton on their defense of Personhood. “I agree words are important,” she said. “If you support this ... wouldn’t you have to oppose all abortions?” She talked about the many kinds of birth control and in-vitro fertilization methods that, if Crampton and Kiessling took wording seriously, should also be outlawed. Kiessling argued that the proposed amendment is framework only. Borgmann and Cohen countered that the language is too ambiguous even for that. Fertilization, as Tucker explained it, is a week-long process that doesn’t happen in a single moment as an egg grows from zygote to blastocyst. “Which of the six things is it?” Cohen asked. “These are scientific definitions.” The moderator turned the panel to the observation that if passed, the personhood amendment would not be self-executing — it does not mandate any action. “A principle is non-self-executing,” he said. Mississippi has an existing statutory framework. The state Supreme Court could read the new amendment as applying to the entire code, and if that happened, Will said, it could possibly lead to the state closing in-vitro fertilization clinics. Kiessling accused him of “fearmongering.”
Borgmann returned to the initiative’s wording, positing that if you think fertilized eggs are persons, and you don’t want a woman to abuse a child, then it would follow you would want to prevent a pregnant woman from drinking and should promote the prosecution of pregnant women who act irresponsibly. You would also believe fertilization clinics should be closed since they can discard embryos, she added. Renee Whitley, a volunteer co-chairwoman of the national advocacy committee for RESOLVE: the National Infertility Association, a nonprofit organization, is a mother because of IVF therapy. “IVF patients, they are you and me, your neighbor, your daughter. It’s one in seven couples,” Whitley said. “It’s been 30 years since the first IVF cycle in Mississippi.” She reiterated what others had already said: The proposed amendment is not self-executing and will need regulating legislation. Crampton said a personhood amendment is not inherently inconsistent with legal IVF therapy. Mississippi law already protects the unborn child from intentional injuries, he said, citing statute 97-3-37 (Homicide; killing of an unborn child). “That statute wouldn’t apply any more” because the amendment would view a fertilized egg with the same rights of a person, said Amelia McGowan of ACLU Mississippi. Doctors in the state could face liability in numerous situations involving the presence of a potential fertilized egg, she warned. “Do we want to interfere in doctorpatient relationships?” McGowan asked. Other issues also could arise. Under the proposed amendment, a one-cell zygote is a person, when it could become one or two or three entities, Tucker, the fertility specialist said, explaining twins and triplets. “It shows a lack of appreciation for the continuum of growth. Splitting is a physical, mechanical act that has nothing do with genetics. The idea that genetics is destiny is horrific.” Cohen said there could be legal implications: “If an embryo becomes two persons, who was it? Sue or Sally? Who was the person?” He said legal complications would follow. “When you look at the scientific side of reproduction, you realize there is nothing simple about it,” Whitley said. “Is freezing allowed? What about embryos that develop (abnormally) in a dish?” She wondered if police would investigate doctors for manslaughter in such cases. “Do you need passports for embryos?” Tucker asked. Personhood is clearly a wedge issue that will tie up the Legislature and cost a lot of resources, he said. “Is this state prepared?”