JACKSON — Hit with a wave of anger from his own party after he voted for a bill that essentially bans abortions after six weeks, Mississippi House Rep. Jay Hughes offered a defense: He did it so white Democrats like himself don’t go the way of the dinosaur.
Yesterday, the Oxford lawmaker, who is a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, voted with eight other Democrats and most Republicans to pass House Bill 732, which bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected. Doctors can detect heartbeats as early as six weeks, making it a de facto ban on almost all abortions.
The heartbeat bills include exceptions for cases where a pregnancy imperils a woman’s life, but an effort by some lawmakers to amend the Senate bill to also include exceptions for rape and incest failed.
Nicki Nichols is a health-care advocate from Brandon who volunteered for Hughes’ campaign and says she was “a huge supporter” in the past. This morning, she tweeted photos of her Jay Hughes yard sign with his name X’d out. Above it, she wrote the words, “MISSISSIPPI WOMEN MATTER.”
In an open letter, she told Hughes he had lost her support.
“It doesn’t matter that your one vote wouldn’t have changed the end result. It does matter that you told women all over Mississippi that a 6 week embryo has more value than we do,” she wrote. “Your vote told me that you care more about a 6 week old pregnancy than you do the life of my daughter, who has (Type 1) diabetes. You may not know that diabetes can cause complications for both a mother and a fetus. That the results could lead to kidney failure and death for my daughter, even if she does everything right.”
