Mississippi Personhood Amendment

Originally posted by gabrielleabelle at Mississippi Personhood Amendment

Okay, so I don't usually do this, but this is an issue near and dear to me and this is getting very little no attention in the mainstream media.

Mississippi is voting on November 8th on whether to pass Amendment 26, the "Personhood Amendment". This amendment would grant fertilized eggs and fetuses personhood status.

Putting aside the contentious issue of abortion, this would effectively outlaw birth control and criminalize women who have miscarriages. This is not a good thing.

Jackson Women's Health Organization is the only place women can get abortions in the entire state, and they are trying to launch a grassroots movement against this amendment. This doesn't just apply to Mississippi, though, as Personhood USA, the group that introduced this amendment, is trying to introduce identical amendments in all 50 states.

What's more, in Mississippi, this amendment is expected to pass. It even has Mississippi Democrats, including the Attorney General, Jim Hood, backing it.

The reason I'm posting this here is because I made a meager donation to the Jackson Women's Health Organization this morning, and I received a personal email back hours later - on a Sunday - thanking me and noting that I'm one of the first "outside" people to contribute.

So if you sometimes pass on political action because you figure that enough other people will do something to make a difference, make an exception on this one. My RSS reader is near silent on this amendment. I only found out about it through a feminist blog. The mainstream media is not reporting on it.

If there is ever a time to donate or send a letter in protest, this would be it.

What to do?

- Read up on it. Wake Up, Mississippi is the home of the grassroots effort to fight this amendment. Daily Kos also has a thorough story on it.

- If you can afford it, you can donate at the site's link.

- You can contact the Democratic National Committee to see why more of our representatives aren't speaking out against this.

- Like this Facebook page to help spread awareness.

Creativity Challenge, weeks late

I was down in southern Oregon the first week of October visiting the grandparents, and we went to see Great Minds Unplugged, an awesome accoustic rock cover band which just happens to consist of my third cousin and my second cousin once removed (I think? Dad's cousin, anyway).



This is the kind of drawing I do a fair bit of (musicians from life). I normally I wouldn't even count it as part of the challenge, but I tried to pay more attention to on-the-fly composition, which ties in nicely with my practice with multiple figures.

Bonus You-Can'-Take-Me-Anywhere Moment: Midway through the set, Matt put on his capo and said "Well, now I have my strap on..." and I said "But it makes it SHORTER!" because the opening was just so bloody obvious. (Did I mention we were at the concert with my parents and grandparents?) After he got done chiding me for my gutter mind (and Grandma stopped hammily pretending she was totally innocent and had NO IDEA what we were talking about), Chris, who's about my age, choked out "I love my family!"

This isn't locked to just the opt-in sketches filter because I want everyone to know how cool GMU is. I'm related to awesome people of awesomeness. Check out the videos on their site. If nothing else, you've probably never heard classic rock covers done with cajon and melodica before.

Creativity Challenge, first week of October. Which was awhile ago.

I was down in southern Oregon the first week of October visiting the grandparents, and we went to see Great Minds Unplugged, an awesome accoustic rock cover band which just happens to consist of my third cousin and my second cousin once removed (I think? Dad's cousin, anyway).



This is the kind of drawing I do a fair bit of (musicians from life). I normally I wouldn't even count it as part of the challenge, but I tried to pay more attention to on-the-fly composition, which ties in nicely with my practice with multiple figures.

Bonus You-Can'-Take-Me-Anywhere Moment: Midway through the set, Matt put on his capo and said "Well, now I have my strap on..." and I said "But it makes it SHORTER!" because the opening was just so bloody obvious. (Did I mention we were at the concert with my parents and grandparents?) After he got done chiding me for my gutter mind (and Grandma stopped hammily pretending she was totally innocent and had NO IDEA what we were talking about), Chris, who's about my age, choked out "I love my family!"

This isn't locked to just the opt-in sketches filter because I want everyone to know how cool GMU is. I'm related to awesome people of awesomeness. Check out the videos on their site. If nothing else, you've probably never heard classic rock covers done with cajon and melodica before.