Some reproduction bills set to die in Miss. House
At least two bills affecting reproductive health will die in the Mississippi House because a chairman says he won’t bring them up for debate before today’s deadline.
House Judiciary B Committee Chairman Andy Gipson, R-Braxton, opposes abortion. But he told The Associated Press on Monday he won’t seek a vote on his own bill that would ban the procedure once a fetal heartbeat is detected. Republican Gov. Phil Bryant had pledged to sign the measure, House Bill 6, if it hit his desk.
A similar heartbeat bill died in a Senate committee last year and Gipson said he anticipated that would happen again.
Gipson said he also won’t bring up House Bill 819, the Protection of the Human Person Act, filed by Rep. Tracy Arnold, R-Booneville. The bill largely reflects a personhood initiative that state voters rejected in 2011, which would have defined life as beginning at fertilization. But Arnold’s bill would go further by banning creation of any human-animal hybrid through in vitro fertilization.
Sun Herald
2/4/13
Magnolia Tribune
