Tuesday April 6, 2010
Personhood Amendment Qualified for Mississippi’s November 2011 Ballot
JACKSON, Mississippi, April 6, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Personhood Mississippi has enough certified voter signatures to ensure a spot on the November 2011 ballot, according to Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann. Personhood Mississippi, a client of Liberty Counsel, worked to gather 130,000 signatures for the 89,285 needed to place the amendment on the ballot.
The amendment reads, “The term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.”
“Medical science unequivocally establishes the personhood of the child from conception. From the moment of fertilization, the unborn child is genetically unique,” stated Liberty Council in a press release announcing the ballot authorization. “Within two and a half weeks from conception, a child’s heartbeat can be heard by ultrasound. Brain waves have been recorded at six weeks. At nine weeks, the preborn have fingerprints and will curl their fingers around objects their hands touch. … At 18 weeks, they can cry.
“But under Roe v. Wade, they still do not have the right to life, even up to the moment of birth.”
In order to point out the similarities between prenatal and postnatal children, Personhood Mississippi is now focusing their grassroots efforts on educating the public to the realities of fetal development and abortion.
“The legal hurdles erected by the legislature and the Attorney General have been enormous, yet the people of the great state of Mississippi have overcome them all and given voice to the voiceless,” said Steve Crampton, Vice President of Legal Affairs and General Counsel of Liberty Counsel. “We look forward to a historic victory for the unborn and stand ready to defend this amendment against all those who would seek to undermine the fundamental right to life for the most innocent among us.”