Political issues in my home state rarely garner national attention. Mississippi’s presidential primary always falls late in the calendar year and it’s small population means that it has very little importance in Congress and the Electoral College. Furthermore, my state is known for being one of the most consistently conservative in the country. Mississippi has chosen a Republican for president in nine of the last 10 election cycles and the strength of the Republican Party continues to grow.
However, last Tuesday, national media outlets sent reporters to Jackson, Miss. to cover one of the most substantial political battles the state has held in a long time. No, they weren’t there to discuss the state’s first black gubernatorial candidate from a major political party since reconstruction (an event that is way overdue if you ask me). They were there to cover a renewed and fiercely aggressive abortion debate.
In Mississippi’s statewide elections on No. 8, voters rejected an amendment to the state’s constitution that would have defined the word ‘person’ to “include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.” The ballot initiative was expected to pass without much difficulty. Mississippi has one of the most pro-life electorates in the country. However, as the election results came in, the initiative came up significantly short of the majority of votes it needed to receive in order to pass. This shocked many people across the state and led to an increased dialogue about what the results mean for the state.
In my opinion, the failure of the personhood amendment in Mississippi has significant consequences for religious communities. Before I continue, it should be noted that I am not discussing the abortion debate in general but will confine my comments to the ramifications of the personhood amendment. Many Mississippians, myself included, would consider themselves pro-life yet chose to vote against the personhood amendment. This is true for a variety of reasons.
Many voters felt that the personhood amendment was too vaguely worded, that it would have negatively affected certain forms of birth control, or that it might have made it more difficult to correct ectopic or molar pregnancies. Regardless of the reason, it is necessary to distinguish between voting against the initiative and being pro-choice or pro-life.
The debate over personhood blurred the lines of religion and politics and led to significantly negative results. One of the most striking results of the personhood debate was a division in religious groups in Mississippi. Mississippi is one of the most churched states in the U.S. In my hometown of only 10,000 people, there are approximately 25 churches. Because of the historical ties that religious groups have to the abortion debate, many church representatives made public statements about the personhood amendment.
While most Southern Baptists were very supportive of the amendment, representatives from the United Methodist Church (the state’s second largest Christian denomination) and the Roman Catholic Church spoke out against the amendment. Unfortunately, the religious involvement in the debate did not end there. Many local pastors took it upon themselves to explicitly preach a message that favored certain political positions. One of Mississippi’s current U.S. senators and two of its representatives made public comments in support of the amendment. As these public statements became commonplace, the line between religion and politics became fuzzy and the consequences are significant. Facebook pages supporting or opposing the amendment were riddled with Bible verses and statements about spiritual warfare. The governor-elect of Mississippi even made a statement during a debate that “Satan wins” if initiative 26 fails.
The personhood debate has cast a spotlight on religious involvement in politics. As a Christian, I think that it is appropriate to use your system of values to make decisions about political issues. However, the debate in Mississippi went too far. Religious groups should never risk alienating individuals by strongly aligning themselves with a political issue. Including comments about Satan and religious topics in a political debate is inappropriate and leads to more harm than good.
I oppose abortion because it is contrary to my values but I can still oppose the personhood amendment because it is just bad policy. Lumping people into groups and making religious claims about them is not productive politically and it definitely does not help churches accomplish their evangelistic goals.
Matthew Harrell is a senior majoring in biological sciences. He can be reached for comment at [email protected]
