Personhood For Embryos and Fetuses Vote Pending in Mississippi

Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Wesley J. Smith

Next week, Mississippi voters will decide whether to convey legal personhood on human beings from inception of the embryo after the completion of fertilization. From the NPR story:

Next week Mississippi voters will decide whether to pass a constitutional amendment that redefines a person. Under the proposal, fertilized human eggs would be considered human beings, which would ban all abortions in the state. But abortion-rights activists say it would also limit contraception and threaten fertility treatments.

Well, embryos and fetuses are unquestionably human beings biologically. The real question is whether unborn lives are to be considered part of the moral community, which is the meaning of “human being” as used in the story. And I am not sure this measure would “redefine” personhood, so much as define it. the rest