JACKSON, MS (Mississippi News Now) -
Voters head to the polls November 8th to decide on the Personhood Amendment which would define when life begins.
Initiative 26 was the topic of discussion Tuesday night at the Mississippi College School of Law.
No cameras were allowed inside the symposium on Amendment 26.
Behind closed doors a panel discussed the implications of the initiative that could change the state constitution to declare that life begins at fertilization.
Buddy and Anna Hairston traveled from Pelahatchie with their four children to support the amendment.
"We believe personhood begins at conception and that needs to be respected by the law," Hairston said. "We love children, and we think they are God's gift to us and that we should respect their life."
Allison Korn opposes the initiative.
The attorney for the National Advocates for Pregnant Women drove from New Orleans to find out more about the potential legal ramifications.
"This is about all women. It's about women who are pregnant," Korn said. "It's about women who seek to have their own birth plans, about women who want to plan their families with birth control or infertility treatment and I think that people looking at this single issue focus of abortion really aren't seeing the big picture."
On the panel of attorneys were a human reproductive scientist, an infertility activist and an ACLU attorney who has handled reproductive freedom cases.
Panelist and New York City Law School Professor Caitlin Borgmann believes the amendment could be struck down as unconstitutional.
"The implications if you really truly define personhood as beginning with a fertilized egg are kind of staggering," Borgmann said. "I mean it goes well beyond the reproductive rights context for example because we would have to treat every fertilized embryo as a person."
Panelist and attorney Rebecca Kiessling with Personhood USA said she was conceived during a rape and was spared from abortion by Michigan law.
"I hope to be able to help put a face to the issue, remind people that we are talking about real people and not just some sort of concept or philosophical entity or legal entity called a fetus, but we're talking about real people," Kiessling said.
More than 100,000 Mississippians signed a petition to place the initiative on the November 8th ballot.
The Catholic Diocese of Jackson has stated that they are not taking a position of public support for the amendment while the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board has stated that they are backing the initiative.
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