Historic opportunity in Mississippi to undo the harm of Roe v. Wade

On Tuesday, Mississippi voters will be given the opportunity to acknowledge one of the fundamental truths of our time: That life begins at conception.

JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI (Catholic Online) - Known as Initiative 26, Mississippi voters will be taking to the polls on Tuesday to declare their beliefs at the ballot box. If the assertion is affirmed, and Initiative 26 passes, it will be the most successful attempt yet at reversing the harm done by the Roe v. Wade decision.

The initiative will declare that an unborn baby has "personhood" and is therefore entitled to the same protections as any other child. It draws a distinction between the scientific terms "human being" and "person" with person being a legal term that conveys rights.

The measure appears set to pass. It enjoys widespread support from the public and support from both the Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates in that state.

After the measure passes, it will likely form the basis of a framework for challenging the practice of abortion in other states, and it will likely make its way to the United States Supreme Court.

Initiative 26 would not ban birth control, however it would ban post-conception efforts at birth control and abortion. Among those would be the "morning after pill". The measure would apply even in the admittedly emotionally difficult cases of rape and incest.

Still, the measure is being praised because it will protect all human life from the moment of conception, regardless of the occasionally unfortunate circumstances of that conception. After all, children come as a gift from God, and should not be punished by one parent for the sin of another.

The Mississippi personhood initiative is strategically designed to strike at the heart of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. In that decision, the justices noted that if an embryo were to attain personhood status, then that embryo would be legally recognized as a human being and therefore entitled to legal protection.

Previous personhood measures have been attempted twice before in Colorado. In that state, the measures were defeated by wide margins.

The benefit of the measure, is that it will finally force a national discussion on the question of personhood. It is hoped that increased awareness will lead people to understand that life does in fact begin at conception and does not somehow spontaneously begin the instant a child exits the mother's womb.

Perhaps surprisingly for some, science affirms this understanding. For even scientists concede that conception is a unique event that sets into motion the development of a human being, a process that cannot be started in any other way except by the singular event of conception.

Help Keep Catholic Online Free

---

'Help Give every Student and Teacher FREE resources for a world-class Moral Catholic Education'