Mississippi Bill Would Ban Manimals, Mermen, and Minotaurs

Not in Mississippi. <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&searchterm=human+jellyfish&search_group=#id=15960145&src=b9a4c4323c589d38a9bbd0770b1e1c6e-1-13">Athos Boncompagni Illustratore </a>/Shutterstock.com

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What do you do after you’ve made abortion de facto illegal in your state by shutting down (almost) all of the clinics? Well, if you’re the Mississippi legislature, you resurrect one of the forgotten moments of the George W. Bush presidency—attempt to push through a law criminalizing the creation of “human-animal hybrids.”

Human-aniwha? Here’s what the bill says:

 

 

More broadly, the bill basically parrots the failed 2011 Personhood amendment, which sought to redefine human life as beginning at fertilization. The Jackson Clarion-Ledger‘s Brian Eason helpfully clarifies that “the way the bill is written, it would not outlaw freak accidents in which, say, you were bitten by a radioactive spider and later developed spider-like qualities.”

Before the 2012 South Carolina primary, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum told pro-lifers that he was unequivocally opposed to the idea of human-jellyfish (hellyfish) hybrids.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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