That Little Round Person Without Sleeves or Dreams in Mississippi

In the state of Mississippi, where boys are sometimes grown African American men and men may be men even though they have names like Bubby and Lynn and Shelby, the government is considering a constitutional amendment that would identify a fertilized egg as a legal person.

I've been thinking about the ramifications and meaning of this ascertainment, as well as how one, let alone a legislative majority, might either validate or repudiate this idea. It occurs to me that the idea flies in the face of certain basic and amazingly simple facts.

What are some of the most basic elements all persons share, even those in Mississippi. Well, people need oxygen, water, and food. I'd venture we need love, too, but I know people who might argue that, so I'll let that one go for now. We need, with extremely insignificant exceptions, clothing, either because of cold or sunburn, mosquitoes or modesty. We do not need cars. We need a sense of purpose -- world peace, raising peas, quilting bees or saving honey bees -- or at least some area of interest, be it car mufflers or cashmere mufflers, Katy Perry or Rick Perry. We need to feel like we make some little inkspot of difference in the world. We have thoughts, dreams, anxieties and hiccups.

Does any of this apply to a fertilized egg? Just what the heck is it that makes anyone think a fertilized egg is a PERSON? If it is

indeed a miniature and somewhat round version of a four limbed, twenty-digited person with the miraculous opposing thumb, we can safely assume that the good ole boys (Harmon and Horton and Beauregard) are going to immediately curtail the right of any person within the state's borders to do anything that keeps it from maturing into another poorly educated southerner with lamentable job opportunities, but what other rights does this microscopic round person without clothing or dreams or hiccups then have? If this is a person, does a pregnant woman on welfare immediately qualify for another ration of child support? Can the father claim another dependent on his income tax even before the child is born? Or is the right to be born the only right this legal person will have?

I think the state should watch out. There are a lot of aspects of personhood that are not being addressed here, and most of them have budgetary ramifications.

And these are my thoughts without even beginning to address the really serious issue here: the right of every woman to decide what happens to her body.