Planned Parenthood, the titan of our country’s abortion industry, claims the Pill will be outlawed and in-vitro fertilization will be illegal if Mississippians vote “yes” on Initiative 26 next Tuesday.

Maybe it will. Just perhaps passage of the so-called Personhood amendment will do those things. Or maybe it won’t. I don’t know for sure. Do you?

What I do know is that Planned Parenthood doesn’t know either. And it doesn’t care. What that radical organization, which performed more than 300,000 abortions in 2010, really cares about is defeating a first-in-the-country declaration that a human being is created at the moment of conception.

That is the intended consequence of passage of Amendment 26 next week: the fertilized egg, even before it’s an embryo, is alive.

A referendum on a statewide ballot affects Mississippi’s constitution and Amendment 26, if it passes, would change the state constitution to declare the fetus a “person.” That is important because the definition of “person” was crucial in Roe vs. Wade, where Justice Henry Blackmun wrote in 1973:
If the suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case (to legalize abortion), of course, collapses for the fetus’s right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment.

The amendment Blackmun was referring to is the 14th Amendment in the U.S. Constitution, which was used in cases Dred Scott vs. Sanford to define citizenship, and to declare equal protection of all persons in Brown vs. Board of Education.

If you’re slow to remember high school history, Dred Scott and Brown were both landmark civil rights cases.

Justice Blackmun’s words are probably still ringing in the ears of abortion opponents, who believe a baby in the womb deserves the same protection under the U.S. Constitution as a black child trying to attend public school.

That seems to be the plan: Mississippi voters approve an amendment declaring a fetus a person, thus setting up a court fight that will work its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. That is why some pro-life groups are not backing Initiative 26, because they fear the current court may do worse than Roe vs. Wade.

Mississippi is not the first attempt at this. Colorado-based Personhood USA failed to get voters in that state to pass a personhood amendment so the state of Mississippi, where abortion laws are strict and only one abortion clinic operates, seemed to be fertile soil for another attempt.

What do you think Planned Parenthood thinks about that? And what would its leaders do, and what would they claim, in order to stop it?

Mississippi will probably never see Amendment 26 added to our constitution, since passage really only sets up a court fight that will move beyond our state borders. That also means all those claims being made will never materialize, assuming Planned Parenthood is telling the truth, which is doubtful.

The coming court fight also means abortion will still be legal Wednesday, too, so you can still travel to Jackson and take care of those unintended consequences.   

Just try not to think about what you did on the trip back, because it was just an egg and a fertilized egg, or even an embryo or even a fetus — they’re not a person. Right? Right?