Cross posted at Liberal South.
Last night, at a quarter to eight, a small group of men and women sat in a room in the Capitol building in Jackson Mississippi with our hearts in our mouths. We watched three state Senators glance pointedly at the clocks in the room as the three House representatives entered. Those of us who believed, prayed, and those of us who didn't sat far forward in our seats, desperate to not miss a word or a gesture, because our lives were on the table.
Last night at eight o'clock, SB 2922 died in committee. It passed the deadline unresolved. We are back to where we started before this session began, but for the pro-choice movement in Mississippi, not losing ground represents an enourmous victory.
SB 2922 was initially intended as an extension of Mississippi's already draconian "informed consent" laws. It is harder for a woman to get an abortion here than it is anywhere else in the country - we have 24 hour waiting periods, parental notification of both parents, the whole nine yards. With SB 2922, the Senate wanted to add the requirement that a woman view a sonogram or listen to the fetal heartbeat prior to termination. In many cases, this would itself be the "undue burden" specifically prohibited by Casey.
When the House received the bill, they debated it for a while. Right around that time, South Dakota passed their measure banning abortion in the state. Our House, in their infinite wisdom, decided that what the Senate had really intended was an outright ban on abortion in the state, but that body had simply been too craven to say so. So the bold and noble representatives of the state rewrote the bill to convey that (leaving out the sonogram/heartbeat bit) and passed it.
And so it went to committee.
At the last moment, after much haggling, haranguing, and faces turning purple, the House changed some language toward the end of the bill so that it would become effective when Roe is struck down - making it, in effect, a trigger law, as many other states have, including Louisiana. It's a bleeding miracle Mississippi hasn't had one before.
At this point in my narrative, I want to pause to stress two things. First, this entire committee proceeding was completely out of order. The Senate voted on one bill, the House another, and then a third bill was to be voted on in committee. Sound familiar? I call attention to the political theory of "monkey see. monkey do". If it's going on at the national level, why shouldn't we do it here, where there is, if anything, less accountability? Or maybe it's vice versa.
The second thing is that this was all a game. All three House members of the committee were Democrats. Only one was demonstrably on our side, and even she signed the trigger law. This was a ploy by otherwise pro-choice Democrats to play up their conservatism in a bid to win more conservative votes this election season. While I understand that these political games are important, especially here, I am furious that our representatives see women's bodies, rights, and lives as pawns to be played and sacrificed at their political whim.
It is because we had come to understand this second thing that we clung to each others' hands last night as the second hand crept toward eight. It is because we understood that we are not people to them that we strove to translate words garbled by hope and fear (and bad electronics, okay, that too). It is due to this realization of our usefulness as gamepieces that we all leapt up, cries on lips and fists clenched as all six legislators, glaring at one another, and still quarreling, signed papers on the stroke of eight.
And so it is is impossible to express to you the joy I felt on learning from Senator Frazier (one of the few men I've seen who can pull off a bow-tie) that each chamber had signed it's own, seperate legislation! The Senators signed their law, and the House signed theirs, so we're all back where we started.
Except we aren't.
They are back where they started. The anti-choice movement has been entrenched in this state, with little or no opposition, for lo these many years. The few of us who do lift our voices are so scattered, and so disorganized, that we have been able to offer almost nothing in the way of balance to the argument. But now we have found each other. We are strong and passionate. We are women and me, old and young, groups and individuals. We have many skills and many contacts at our disposal, if only we pool our resources. From clergy to doctors to students and social workers and webmasters to humble bloggers, we are coming together.
This is the beginning. It will not be the end.
A number of us have already committed to attend the CLPP Annual Reproductive Freedom Conference, and more are trying to go. The south may be the lost cause that many in the national Democratic party think it to be, but it is not because we are lying down on the job. The civil rights movement began here, and here it continues to this day.