Personhood on the Ballot in Mississippi
If it seems ridiculous to decide whether someone is a person by majority vote, it is. However, that being said, it is a great hope to the pro-life movement, starting in Mississippi. In deciding Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court acknowledged that if the unborn child were declared a person, it could not be killed.
Well, since 1973 science has definitively answered what common sense already had – the unborn child is a person. At the moment of conception, the human embryo is a unique, self-replicating organism with its own DNA. That is uncontested. However, the law in the United States still does not recognize anyone as being a person with human rights until completely out of the womb. The state of Mississippi is trying to change that.
By the Supreme Court’s own admission, a legally defined person can not be killed by abortion. A proposed amendment to the constitution of the state of Mississippi, Amendment 26 – the Personhood Amendment, would define a human being as legally a person “from the moment of fertilization.” It would enshrine into law what science has already told us.
We as Catholics have always known that every “organism of the species homo sapiens” as the pro-abortion side likes to euphemize, is a person with inestimable value, precious and lovely in the sight of God. The notion that the law decides who is a person is very dangerous. If the state declares you a person, the state can, in the future, declare you not a person. See Nazi Germany.
Regardless, this is an important first step. We can never agree that someone’s personhood or human rights depend on a declaration by the government. “We are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights.” Those are the words of the Declaration of Independence, on which our country was founded. First among those rights listed is the right to life. However, as long as we live in a country that refuses to recognize everyone’s right to life, we have to fight using every moral means possible, including the law.
How can you help? First, pray. Then, check out www.personhoodmississippi.com to become educated about the measure, and consider giving a donation. Then let’s work for a human life amendment to the United States Constitution.
