My Slate colleagues and I spent a few minutes imagining some of the possibilities raised by the Mississippi amendment.... Here are some of the questions we came up with:
1. If you are legal person at fertilization, does that mean you could drink at 20 years and three months? Could you drive at 15 and three months? Could you vote at age 17, and collect Social Security at 64?
2. For legal purposes, would your birthday still be your birth day? Or your fertilization day?
3. Could you get a tax deduction for your dependent embryo?
4. Could you post ultrasound photos of your fetus (naked) on Facebook? Or would that be child pornography?
5. Could you arrest women for smoking or drinking while pregnant? Could the state file a child abuse case against a mother who didnt wear a seatbelt or otherwise endangered her fetus?
6. Would you be an American citizen if you were conceived in Mississippi but born elsewhere? Could there be anchor babies whose parents come to the United States, have sex, and then return home to Mexico for their babys birth?
7. What about ectopic pregnancies? If the embryo is not removed, it could kill the mother. Should the mother or the doctor be prosecuted for manslaughter if they remove it? Maybe it would be fairer to prosecute the embryo. If the fertilized egg is a person, isn't that person trying to commit murder-suicide?
8. What about freezing fertilized embryos? Would that be allowed? And why? If you're freezing an embryo indefinitely, isn't that effectively imprisoning it? We don't freeze people.
9. If a doctor doesn't take all possible steps to stop a miscarriage, would that be manslaughter?
10. How would you determine the date of conception?
11. If a woman eats food contaminated by Listeria and miscarries, could the agribusiness be prosecuted for murder?
12. If you move to Mississippi from another state, would you legally be a year older?
13. How would it affect the census?