Next week you may be a year older than you are today. If Mississippi passes its “personhood” amendment, everyone in Mississippi will have nine months added to their age. It passed, your life began at conception. That is the instant at which you became a person for all legal purposes. And it isn't just Mississippi. A whole bunch of other states, including Florida and Ohio, are considering doing the same.
Seniors will be able to get their Social Security nine months earlier. And every person who is 20 years old and three months will now be able to drink legally. Imagine the joy in all the bars, liquor stores, and nightclubs when they realize that a whole new cohort of clients will begin clamoring for drinks. And now they don't need to use phony IDs.
Most of the discussion of the "Personhood" amendment has focussed on how it will make abortions, most forms of birth control and in vitro fertilization not only illegal, but also murder. That's more than enough reason for Mississippi voters to defeat it, like those in Colorado who rejected it in 2010 by a three to one margin. But if they don't, a whole new world of possibilities opens up. Imagine this-
If you're a kid whose itching to drive but not yet sixteen, no problem. As long as your mommy's egg and your daddy's sperm got together 15 years and three months ago you're eligible to drive. And who the heck knows exactly when that was anyway.
Citizenship could be a little bit of an issue. If it so happens that your parents went on their honeymoon in, let's say, Cancun, and conceived you there, you unfortunately are not a citizen of Mississippi and maybe not even one of the United States. That is of course unless we focus on the “birth” language in the Constitution. But then again, birth in the state of Mississippi is really not relevant. It's only where you were conceived.
On the other hand, having an "anchor" baby will be a whole lot easier. No need to travel to the US while pregnant. A foreign couple from, say, Kenya, need only spend a night or two in a Biloxy hotel, conceive their child, and fly on home to Nairobi. Their child will be a Mississippian now and forever more.
Speaking of conception, “conception day” will be your new birthday. After all conception is where it all began. The day you were born is nothing more than another day in the continuum of your development as a "person" to be celebrated no more than say "Implantation Day”, "Dilation Day", or "First Tooth Day."
Prosecutors and defense counsel are going to have a field day. Imagine all of those people convicted of offenses who until now were thought to have been under 18 years old when the crime was committed. Whoops. It's going to turn out that a bunch of them were tried as juveniles when they should have been tried as adults. And the age of a whole bunch of victims who were thought to be underage is now open to dispute. That statutory rape charge involving a seventeen year old, may now have to be thrown out.
Parents will be able to claim that extra dependent tax deduction earlier and expectant mothers will no longer be expecting, at least for purposes of the car pool lane. The down side is that they may have to buy a child ticket to the movies or to ride on a plane. And they could be prosecuted for child endangerment if they are not riding in the back seat in an infant seat. Wow. How's that going to work?
And here's some great news for seniors. You can now collect Social Security and Medicare at your conception age. Bet that'll give the actuaries at SSA some fits.
Yes, next week it will be a great time to be a Mississippian. And maybe we can make this movement nationwide and throw the whole country into chaos.