HUMANS ARE PERSONS, TOO

"Personhood Mississippi, a citizen-led grassroots organization, submitted over 130,000 signatures late yesterday, becoming the fourth ballot initiative since 1992 to fulfill the requirement of 89,285 voter signatures – 17,857 per Congressional district.

The signatures were collected in order to put a Personhood amendment on the ballot, affirming the personhood rights of all humans.

105,000 of the submitted signatures were certified as valid by 82 different County Circuit Clerks. The abundance of signatures broke the state record for signatures in every other initiative in Mississippi history.

Comprised of all volunteers, Personhood Mississippi laid claim to over 2,000 volunteers and over 1,000 churches."

“Be it Enacted by the People of the State of Mississippi: SECTION 1. Article III of the constitution of the state of Mississippi is hearby 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.”
Personhood Mississippi

So this idea of personhood seems rather arcane and removed from your daily concerns, does it? Well, lets see if we can't clear it up a bit. In the Constitution it is the "person" that is referred to as the one that possesses the rights. As an example:

Amendment 5: No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury.. (A slave was not extended this right because they lacked personhood)

The Constitution exists to protect the rights of the people from the power of the government because the Founders recognized that all rights pass from God through the people to the government. However, because a dog is not a person he would not possess the inherent natural rights of a human being.

Person:

human, individual —sometimes used in combination especially by those who prefer to avoid man in compounds applicable to both sexes
Merriam Webster

The easiest way to legally exclude a class of beings from the protections possessed by man would be to declare them as something other than human. This is what the Supreme Court did in both the Dred Scott Case and Roe v. Wade. Blacks and babies were declared non human through the denial of their personhood.

"The words "people of the United States" and "citizens" are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who ... form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the Government through their representatives.... The question before us is, whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement [people of Aftican ancestry] compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them."
Dred Scott Decision

"Justice Harry Blackmun wrote in the majority opinion for Roe v. Wade in 1973, “The appellee and certain amici [pro-lifers] argue that the fetus is a ‘person’ within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well-known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment.”
Personhhod USA

Note that it in the Dred Scott decision the Court makes clear that the rights of Africans come from the government, not from God, because they are "a subordinate and inferior class of beings". Africans were not considered human for if they were: "If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment." (Roe V. Wade)

So you see, personhood is THE issue. If a baby in the womb is accorded personhood then it deserves all of the rights and protections granted by God and guaranteed in the Constitution. In this modern age, with all of the medical and scientific data available that makes it abundantly clear just how human the fetus is, the denial of its personhood is barbaric; no less than the enslavement of a people because of their perceived inferiority. Further, the harvest of babies to support the research into disease is even more barbaric than the traffic in human flesh that was the slave trade, for at least the slave retained his life!

What may seem to be a minor issue of wording carries the weight of slavery or freedom, life or death. America's original sin was slavery. We have paid and are still paying the cost of this sin. As a society we have repented, accepted our responsibility and tried to repair the damage. But the wages of this particular sin have been high.

Abortion transcends slavery by a magnitude unimaginable. The price we will pay for it is beyond comprehension. We have killed millions upon millions of innocent children in this country in the name of convenience and narcissism. And we have yet to repent.

As things start to come apart for America and the world remember what we've done. Beg for God's forgiveness and mercy. We work for a wage and when our work is sin our wages are death. America has been working overtime.