This November the state of Mississippi will have elections and a chance to vote on a state constitution amendment. Amendment 26 will redefine the definition of person hood.
Be it Enacted by the People of the State of Mississippi: SECTION 1. Article III of the constitution of the state of Mississippi is hereby amended BY THE ADDITION OF A NEW SECTION TO READ: Section 33. Person defined. As used in this Article III of the state constitution, "The term 'person' or 'persons' shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof." This initiative shall not require any additional revenue for implementation.
There are some good things about this proposed amendment. It is probably the first attempt anywhere in the fifty US states that explicitly says a cloned human has the same rights as a naturally conceived human. It is also an attempt to stop the federal Freedom of Choice Act.
The problem arises in the details of making every foetus a person from the moment of fertilization. As the legal brief that is found on Amendment 26 via a link points out. Scroll down to page 8 of the PDF where it is discussed the impact of granting 14th Amendment rights to the unborn. Basically, if this opinion is correct, there should be legal proceedings to determine if the life and rights of the mother, who may die trying to carry the baby to term, is more important than violating the 14th Amendment rights of the unborn baby.
I find it hard to wrap my mind around the concept of interested parties running to a new 24/7 Unborn Rights Court to get a ruling to save the mother or to fight to make the mother carry the child. Some supporters of the amendment say such events could not happen. If they could never happen, then why are the lawyers even pointing it out? Perhaps because they have a firmer grasp of legalisms? And they realize the nature of some people to exercise power over others in any fashion imaginable?
If this Amendment passes, it would require more laws to be passed to prevent the above from happening. And this might apply to cases of miscarriage if an ambitious lawyer meets the proper vengeful family member who wants to the punish the mother. Trying to solve two problems, abortion and embryonic stem cell research has the potential to spawn other problems.
2 comments:
Is this law going to be something new or just restate the law that says if a guy kicks a pregnant gal and she miscarries her unborn he can be charged with murder? If she murders...errr, aborts it, then it isn't murder of course.
It changes in the state constitution what the definition of a person is. Once fertilization happens, the unborn bay has full rights as enumerated in the state and US Constitution.
So in this case a thug kicking a pregnant woman which causes a spontaneous miscarriage will be charged with murder. Same for performing an abortion without a trial over the unborn's 14th Amendment rights, would be murder. So too cloning someone for parts would be murder. And of course what I wrote about - its in the realm of possible in order to save the mother's life if the pregnancy endangers her, a court would have to rule in favor of the mother's 14th Amendment rights.
The only way to correct these problems if this amendment is passed, is for further legislation to be proposed and hopefully passed. If these changes are not passed that is the rub.
So it seems the cure in this case is worse than the problem it attempts to correct. The pendulum swings too far in the opposite direction.
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