Mississippi has become the most recent state to join 13 others in pursuing a “Personhood Amendment.”

A press release by Personhood Mississippi states they already have enough votes to put their measure on the 2011 election ballot as an Amendment to the Mississippi Constitution.

Fetal sonogram

What is a Personhood Amendment?
“Personhood” amendments are pro-life measures being proposed at state-level legislatures.

The goal is to recognize, within the states’ constitutions, that every unborn child has the same inherent rights, dignity and value as every living human from the beginning of their biological development.

Another aspect being pursued in some states is to assure dignity and human rights to every physically or mentally disabled or elderly person; to prevent the notion of involuntary euthanasia.

The “Personhood Movement” is an official nationwide pro-life movement.This  website clarifies that Personhood Amendments can also be called Human Life Amendments.

A list of participating states and where they are at in the process can be seen here at Personhood.Net – a subsidiary of the Georgia Right to Life Committee. Georgia was the first state with such a proposal in 2007. It hasn’t resulted in being placed on a voters’ ballot.

Joining those states that have already constructed or proposed Personhood Amendments between 2007 and April 2010, approximately 26 other state legislatures are taking action to draft similar wording.

Additionally, Personhood.Net carries information regarding ongoing attempts to get enough petition signatures to file a Federal Personhood Amendment to the United States Constitution.

In September 2009, The Underground reported on Florida’s “Personhood Amendment” movement .

Update: The Florida movement continues to press forward. The proposed Personhood Amendment, if enough votes are collected, would be placed on the next Florida election ballot for citizens’ votes.

Recent experiments from Newcastle University, England, that create embryos from two mothers and one father, have brought to the fore new ethical issues from pro life advocates, the Christian Telegraph reported.

According to the Christian Telegraph, the experiment seeks to address mitochondrial disease, an inherited illness borne by the mother.

Credit:lumix2004/sxc.hu

One in 6,500 children is born in England with mitochondrial disease, which can lead to muscular weakness, dementia, deafness, blindness and heart failure among others.

The mitochondria in cells get the energy from food and convert it into a form that the cells can use.

Mitochondria have 37 DNA which function mostly in energy-related ways to the rest of the body, and help to assemble protein building blocks, according to the President’s Council on Bioethics.

In the UK experiment scientists removed all the male sperm and female material from a fertilized egg—except the damaged mitochondria.

They then inserted it into another egg which had been emptied of everything except its healthy mitochondria.

The resulting new embryo was made largely of both parents’ 23,000 genes, plus the 37 mitochondrial DNA from the donor egg.  This experiment used embryos that originally had been newly conceived for in vitro fertilization (IVF).  The embryos that were left over became the material for the experiment.

Some 80 new embryos were made by the Newcastle team.  The experiment was licensed by the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HEFA), and was funded by the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust.

Of the 80, only eight percent or 6.4 embryos grew normally into blastocysts.  The blastocyst stage usually occurs 5 days after fertilization.

It has not yet implanted, but it has an inner cell mass which will become the fetus, and is surrounded by an outer ring that will become part of the placenta, according to the President’s Council on Bioethics.

The team that conducted the experiment believes they will have better results if they use normal embryos, and now hope to do so.  The experiment used faulty embryos which were discarded after IVF treatment and donated for research, according to Timesonline.

Opponents to the experiment have raised ethical concerns.

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) said the experiment kills and abuses human embryo.

SPUC communications manager Anthony Ozimic said, “Creating embryonic children in the laboratory abuses them, by subjecting them to unnatural processes.”

He also warned of possible “developmental abnormalities,” such as have resulted from IVF and cloning.

“Scientists should respect human life and pursue ethical alternatives which are much more likely to be successful in the long-term,” Ozimic said, according to the Christian Telegraph.

Dr. Donald Bruce, former director of the Society, Religion and Technology Project of the Church of Scotland said, “If the Newcastle results are taken forward to medical application, they need to be applied under very strict controls, and only where serious disease is otherwise likely to result,” according to the BBC.

Readers of Timesonline also wrote their reactions.

Elaine Smith wrote:

“In most cases, I really do think all forms of IVF should be banned and adoption be made simpler and faster. There are 6 billion people on earth, and then these people spend all this money on having a baby that they could have spent adopting and helping some third world child.”

Barry Johnston wrote:

“I really can’t understand this. There are THOUSANDS of unwanted children in this country and beyond. Instead of spending billions trying to create a perfect child, why not give a child a near perfect life of love and acceptance?”

Ben Turner wrote:

“Coming from a person with a genetic disorder I can see how it is a gift to be born without one, especially if it is severe.”

In the UK, it is currently illegal to use this technique for fertility treatment.

The issue of Christian marginalization has gained new heat as the National Secular Society (NSS) recently accused Christian church leaders, including former Archbishop Lord Carey of Canterbury, of seeking special treatment at the Court of Appeals (CA).

In a separate instance Shirley Chaplin, a nurse, was banned by Devon and Exeter NHS Trust from wearing her crucifix on the job although she had done so without incident for the last 30 years.

This has sparked new debate among Christians, Muslims and secularists about the issue of discrimination of Christians in favor of secularists.

Stephen Evans of the NSS said “Equality for all before the law must be non-negotiable.”

However, Paul Diamond of the Christian Legal Centre filed the request on behalf senior church leaders after religious activists had already lost several cases of church discrimination.

Diamond also represents Gary McFarlane, who was fired from his job for refusing to give sex therapy to gay couples.

The church is requesting that McFarlane’s case is heard by a specialist panel of five judges with a proven understanding of religious issues.  They also requested that the panel is headed by Lord Judge and the Lord Chief Justice.

The Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON) website noted that senior churchmen felt the CA judges are biased against them.

Lord Carey and others said that in the long term there is a need to appoint a panel of judges – of all religious faiths – to hear sensitive religious rights cases.

In a separate instance Shirley Chaplin, a nurse, was banned by Devon and Exeter NHS Trust from wearing her crucifix on the job although she had done so without incident for the last 30 years.

Others Protest

Dr. Taj Hargey, chairman of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford said secularism in Britain is “virulent”, and that Britain should be defending Christianity as the faith of the British majority instead of marginalizing it.

Hargey said “As a Muslim, I am filled with despair at the attitude of our politically correct officials towards Christianity” in his article entitled “What Has Britain Come to when it takes a Muslim Like me to Defend Christianity?”

Hargey expressed regret that the core of religious liberty, which was a “…cornerstone for our democratic, respectful and tolerant nation” is slowly ebbing.

Donald MacLeod, principle of the Free Church college in Edinburgh was featured in guardian.uk.com saying “Muslims may wear their burkas, gays their earrings and Sikhs their turbans, but Christians may not wear crucifixes.  Marriage is attacked because of presumed links with Christianity, and euthanasia promoted because it is presumed to have none.”

In the same article Mary Warnock said “We need an established church.  There are occasions when the cultural traditions and ceremonies of religion are essential, and nothing else will do.  Christianity is not just a private but a public matter, woven into our constitution and our shared imaginative life.”

For the past few years, some families in the UK have been living in “sin bins.”

In sports, a sin bin is a penalty box, but in the UK, it’s sort of like a fishbowl.

Through the Family Intervention Project, the British government subjected about 2,000 of its “worst” families to round-the-clock monitoring, making sure children in the families went to school on time, to sleep at decent hours and ate nutritious meals.

Security guards carried out home checks, and parents with drug and alcohol problems received help to fight their addictions.

The purpose of Family Intervention Projects, according to the British government is to quell to swell of anti-social behavior in Britain. The thought behind the program is that a stable home life leads to future societal stability.

According to initial reports, the program has been successful thus far.

Ed Balls, the UK’s Children’s Secretary even laid out a plan to integrate 20,000 more problem families into the program over the next two years at a cost of £5,000 to £20,000 per family.

“This is pretty tough and non-negotiable support for families to get to the root of the problem,” said Balls.

“There should be Family Intervention Projects in every local authority area because every area has families that need support.”

Critics of the project, such as Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling say the project is too little too late, and try to blame the current ruling party for problems.

“This government has been in power for more than a decade during which time anti-social behavior, family breakdown and problems like alcohol abuse and truancy have just got worse and worse.”

However, I don’t think that’s being fair to the Labour Party.

Societal ills can’t be pinned on one ruling party. I’m sure the same things went on when the Conservative Party was in charge.

The real reason there has been a rise in truancy and delinquency in the UK is the moral breakdown of British society.

Though most people settle into their beliefs as they age, they learn their core beliefs or morals from their parents.

Usually that morality sticks with a person, unless there is a concerted effort to rid oneself of it.

Where does morality come from?

Depending on who you ask, morality can come from society via an unwritten social contract, be inherent in each person or it can come from that which is transcendent.

In the UK’s case, as British society was influenced by Christianity until the 19^th century, I think it’s okay to go with the latter.

As in the United States, British society was so heavily influenced by Christian thought that Christianity ended up in the social conscience of the masses.

Since the UK has rejected Christianity as the philosophy du jour, other often-competing worldviews are trying to fill the vacuum.

At the same time, however, people are living with a hazy remembrance …a “shadow” of their former Christian-influenced morality.

Since British people have rejected the basis for their morality, people are confused; they don’t really know how they should live.

Confusion begets the breakdown of the family unit, which leads to hooliganism and anti-social behavior.

The British government, seeing the end result of this confusion, has tried to pick up the pieces, which is laudable.

However, instead of dealing with or even acknowledging the real root of the problem—the decline in morality– the government is planning to spend gobs of money on hand-holding.

The problem with this is that it’ll never work.

Unless people know why what they are doing is wrong, they’ll continue to do the wrong thing.

Why should children go to bed on time? Why should they eat nutritious meals? Why is substance abuse wrong? Why is anti-social behavior wrong?

If the British government, having taken on the role of supreme parent, is not answering these philosophical questions, it is really just telling its “children,” “Because I said so.”

That never flies with children, and it’s not going to fly with this social experiment.