But Mississippi seemed the natural place to go -- the most conservative state in the nation, which also elected Phil Bryant, the Republican lieutenant governor and co-chair of the Yes on 26 campaign, to succeed Haley Barbour as governor. This would be the man who Monday evoked the Jews of Nazi Germany “being marched into the oven,” and who said of 26's opponents, “the evil dark side that exists in this world is taking hold. And they’re saying, what we want you to be able to do is continue to extinguish innocent life. You see, if we could do that, Satan wins." Oppose 26, Bryant argued, and "you’re on the side of the lie. You’re on the side of taking the lives of innocent children.”

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Hemmins, the most visible face of the movement to defeat Mississippi's now-notorious Personhood Amendment, heading for a close vote today, was talking to Brad Prewitt. He's the campaign director charged with passing the initiative, which defines life as beginning at fertilization. He's also a father through in-vitro fertilization, which fertility specialists say Initiative 26 would make practically impossible.

“Nothing’s fair,” Prewitt replied, according to a recording, and walked away.

Prewitt (who didn't respond to my request for an interview yesterday) had reason to be testy. Initiative 26, until recently considered an easy sell in a fiercely antiabortion state, had just been declared a tossup in a reliable poll. Support for the amendment has dropped 17 points in just two weeks, his anti-26 counterpart, Stan Flint, told me, as the public debate shifted to what it would actually mean to declare fertilized eggs people. It would affect not only IVF, but also ban abortion and many common forms of birth control, open the door to prosecuting women who suffer suspicious miscarriages, and tie the hands of doctors trying to save women's lives.

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