Physicians and medical associations are now speaking out against Mississippi’s personhood amendment, warning that it is “a dangerous intrusion of criminal law into the provision of medical care.”

Specifically, by criminalizing abortion, the measure could “criminalize routine medical practice that intentionally or not terminates a pregnancy” because, according to the measure, any fertilized egg — regardless of if and where it implants — could be considered a “person.” And because the measure has no exceptions for health of the mother (let alone rape or incest), Mississippi physicians are worried that termination of such a life-threatening pregnancy could still be considered a form of homicide:

[Mississippi Medical Association President Dr. Tom] Joiner and other opponents of Initiative 26 are concerned that by attempting to criminalize abortion, the initiative will criminalize routine medical practice that intentionally or not terminates a pregnancy. There is no mention in the initiative of an exception for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, nor for the health of the mother, as in the case of life-threatening conditions such as ectopic or molar pregnancies. (In an ectopic pregnancy the fertilized egg implants outside the uterus, most often in the fallopian tube; in a molar pregnancy the fertilized egg becomes an abnormal growth such as a tumor rather than a fetus.)

“These pregnancies were not meant to go on to be people and we don’t think calling them persons is going to do any good for the patients that carry them nor the pregnancies themselves,” said Tupelo obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Wayne Slocum, vice chair of the Mississippi section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Slocum said because ectopic and molar pregnancies never result in live births, casting those fertilized eggs as “persons” does not make sense. “They just need to be treated either with medication or surgery,” he said. “If not the mother can bleed to death or have dire consequences.”

Ultimately, as the Mississippi State Medical Association warns, the bill “will place in jeopardy a physician who tries to save a mother’s life by performing procedures and employing techniques have used for years.” Even while some of the doctors belonging to the association oppose abortion, Dr. Joiner says “nearly all of the association’s members oppose Initiative 26.” Dr. Slocum considers himself “pro-life” but says, “we feel like passing this amendment to the state constitution would do more to harm our patients than it will do to stop abortion.”

This Tuesday, Mississippians will vote on Initiative 26, a “personhood” amendment to the state constitution that defines a person as “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.” This “profoundly ambiguous” amendment will deliberately trample on a woman’s reproductive health and privacy, essentially criminalizing abortion, outlawing contraception like the birth control pill, and even preventing couples from having a child through in vitro fertilization.

It is these consequences that leave even the most staunch anti-choice activists cold. The National Right to Life organization has refused to promote it. Even the Catholic Bishops have refused to endorse the amendment, noting that the bill is so extreme, it could jeopardize their more serious efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade:

In the letter [Jackson Bishop Joseph Latino] called Personhood Mississippi “a noble initiative.” However, he said, “I join with Catholic bishops in several other states in not endorsing personhood petitions to be circulated in our Catholic parishes. We have committed ourselves to working for a federal amendment and feel the push for a state amendment could ultimately harm our efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade.”

Numerous religious leaders, who joined Bishop Latino at a press conference to speak out against the bill, were more forthright in their denunciations. “It is a blunt instrument which, if passed, will harm Mississippi women and their families both physically and spiritually,” said Rabbi Debra Kassoff. “Because God has sanctified not only fetal life, but all life, we urge Mississippians to vote against Initiative 26.”

In fact, religious leaders are taking issue with the personhood movement’s foundational idea that such amendments comply with “divine law” as defined by biblical text. The Interfaith Center of New York’s Rev. Chloe Breyer and Rabbis for Human Rights’ Rabbi Jill Jacobs both insisted that the biblical text that “life at conception” activists often rely on is actually “invoked to support the rights of a woman to have an abortion” as it conveys the idea that “the fetus does not achieve personhood until emerging from the womb.”

Breyer also notes that Christian representatives have long argued against the idea that life beings at conception. Saint Augustine actually wrote on the question of “personhood” and “ascribed to the idea of delayed ‘ensoulment” in which the fetus did not “receive a human soul” until a certain number of days after conception. In 1994, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church expressed its “unequivocal opposition” to any action that would “abridge the right of a woman to reach an informed decision about the termination of her pregnancy, or that would limit the access of a woman to safe means of acting upon her decision.”

Mitt Romney laid out his Medicare reform plan at the “Defending the American Dream” summit in Washington, DC this afternoon, endorsing a Paul Ryan-like privatization scheme that would do more to shift costs to seniors than reduce overall health care spending. Below are the top four health care myths from Romney address:

CLAIM 1: “[Obama is] the only President in modern history who has cut Medicare for seniors.”

FACT: Many presidents have made changes to Medicare since 1965, including Republican idol Ronald Reagan. Reagan instituted a series of reforms that are strikingly similar to some of the payment changes included in the Affordable Care Act (policies Romney now refers to as cuts or price controls.) For instance, Reagan adopted DRGs or Diagnosis Related Groups for paying hospitals more efficiently. As a result of the changes, Medicare saved $49 billion by 1986, far exceeding what even the Congressional Budget Office had predicted.

CLAIM 2: “And he put the future of Medicare in the hands of 15 unelected bureaucrats…President Obama’s so-called Medicare reforms could lead to rationing of care or denial of care to seniors on Medicare.”

FACT: The board will be composed of doctors, economists, and consumer representatives who will be confirmed by the Senate and will be tasked with designing a savings plan if health care spending increases beyond a certain threshold. The proposal is statutorily prohibited from rationing benefits or increasing co-pays and will go into effect unless Congress acts to alter the proposal or discontinue automatic implementation.

The health law does not cut the current Medicare budget; it slows the growth in the program by removing $500 billion from future spending over the next 10 years. The cuts help stabilize Medicare by eliminating overpayments and slowly phasing in payment adjustments that encourage greater efficiency. As a result, the law extends the life of the Medicare trust fund by nine years and allows seniors to retain all of their guaranteed Medicare benefits.

CLAIM 3: “Competition will lower costs and increase the quality of health care. That’s the answer for Medicare. The federal government will pay seniors for the coverage they choose with a level of support that ensures that all can obtain the coverage they need.”

FACT: Competition in Medicare hasn’t lowered health care costs. In fact, managed care — as it currently exists as an option through Medicare Advantage — lacks the bargaining power of the traditional Medicare program and has produced only limited savings. Private plans are currently receiving a subsidy from the federal government to offer additional benefits, but are often less efficient and charge more for the same coverage. In a “premium support” system, private insurers would also have an incentive to cherry pick the healthiest beneficiaries, increasing costs for seniors who choose to remain in fee-for-service coverage. The subsidy from the federal government, meanwhile, will not keep up with actual health care costs, forcing seniors to pay more for coverage every year.

CLAIM 4: “The eligibility should slowly increase to keep pace with increases in longevity.”

FACT: Raising the age would increase overall system costs and save the federal government money by shifting costs to most of the 65- and 66-year-olds who would lose Medicare coverage, to employers that provide health coverage for their retirees, to Medicare beneficiaries, to younger people who buy insurance through the new health insurance exchanges, and to states. In fact, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that raising the eligibility age to 67 would cause an estimated net increase of $5.6 billion in out-of-pocket health insurance costs for beneficiaries. Seniors in Medicare Part B would also face a 3 percent premium increase since younger and healthier enrollees would be routed out of Medicare and into private insurance.

Aside from presenting repeal of the Affordable Care Act as a spending reduction — when in reality reduces revenue and thus increases the debt — Mitt Romney also argues that eliminating the health care law will be “easy.” It’s a common piece of Republican mythology that just isn’t true.

As this Associated Press Fact Check explains, a Republican president won’t be able to exempt the states from the law through waivers:

For a state to be granted a waiver, it must show that it will provide coverage that is at least as comprehensive and affordable as under the federal law. Also, a state has to insure a comparable number of its residents, and its plan must not add to the federal deficit by shifting costs to Washington. Finally, a state has to enact its own health law setting up the system envisioned in its waiver request. Romney’s assertion also implies that all states would want to get out of the health care law. That’s a doubtful proposition for Democratic-leaning states.

And, beyond a reconciliation bill that only deals with budgetary items, it will be nearly impossible to attract 60 senate votes to eliminate core pieces of the law:

Some core parts of the law are not dependent on annual budgeting. Going beyond the budget process to repeal the law in full is an even steeper climb. It would require a larger Republican congressional majority to move forward and to clinch 60 votes in the Senate – all this as the law increasingly takes root in the nation’s medical and insurance system.

Going after the law piece by piece will also inject great havoc into the health insurance markets and destabilize coverage for many Americans who are already benefiting from the law.

“Deficits do matter, they matter a lot,” former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney told a packed auditorium in Exeter, New Hampshire Thursday evening, promising to cut government spending by $500 billion in his first term as president. Romney said he would eliminate federal subsidies to Amtrak, make cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts, strip foreign aid from “countries that can take care of themselves,” and of course repeal the Affordable Care Act:

ROMNEY: The first approach of this combination effort is to eliminate and cut programs. Now, there are some programs I just don’t like and would be easy to eliminate like Obamacare. And that saves about $90 billion, Obamacare alone, by 2016.

Watch it:

But Romney’s commitment to eliminating health reform undermines his message on deficit reduction. ThinkProgress contacted the Romney campaign to ask about the candidate’s alleged spending reduction.

They pointed us to a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the GOP’s repeal bill, which does find on page 5 that eliminating the law would reduce federal spending by $95 billion in 2016. But page 6 of the same document also notes that the government would lose substantially more in revenue — $219 billion over the period of 2012 to 2016 — resulting in an increase to the budget deficit of $85 billion. Overall, repealing the law would “cause a net increase in federal budget deficits of $210 billion over the 2012-2021 period,” the CBO found.

When confronted with the disparity, a Romney spokesperson first explained that the Massachusetts governor is focused on spending reductions and then dismissed the deficit increase by describing the CBO’s savings for the Affordable Care Act as gimmicky.

In other words, Romney is cherry picking numbers to meet his spending reduction goals while conveniently ignoring data that contradicts his message on deficits.