OXFORD - Many will vote for the so-called Personhood Amendment on Nov. 8 thinking they're making the world a safer, more loving place for unborn children.

The measure, officially called Initiative 26, is one of three changes proposed for Mississippi's constitution to be on ballots next month when we elect a new governor and other state, county and district leaders.

Sadly, it will not make the world a safer, more loving place for children, born or unborn. In the short term it will confound the practice of medicine. The longer term will see more and more litigation with little change in the number of abortions.

The question will be worded, "Should the term 'person' be defined to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the equivalent thereof?"

Backers are building on two legal foundations.

First, the constitutions of this state and the United States provide that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. The 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision hinged, in part, on the word "person," which was not defined when the constitutions were written. What the justices supposed was that a forming child was not a person (or human being) until it could live independently of its mother. Therefore, in the first three months of a pregnancy, the forming child had no legal rights.

The second foundation is that constitutions are the basic laws from which all other state and federal laws must flow. If lawmakers pass a law that contradicts a constitution, the courts must strike it down. If lawmakers pass a law assuming they have authority not granted not in a constitution, the courts must strike that law, too.

That meant Texas, the state being sued in Roe vs. Wade, had no authority to outlaw abortions, at least until the forming child became a "person."

Nearly 40 years later, backers of Initiative 26 believe they have the solution. If the definition of person becomes "fertilized egg," then the state not only has the authority, but the duty to provide rights to what remains, albeit briefly, a microscopic organism.

The immediate result will be to make the practice of reproductive medicine much more difficult in several ways, notably in what's called in vitro cases. The practice of removing eggs, fertilizing them and replanting them for normal growth, development and delivery is common in Mississippi. Couples who have yearned to have children would be thwarted because clinics would not risk the possible legal entanglements that would flow from fertilized eggs that were not implanted. After all, the amendment makes each one a legal "person."

Also, while birth control medications normally work to keep a woman from releasing an egg, they also limit development of the tissue where a fertilized egg would implant and grow. All of this takes place with no outward evidence. The question is would the maker and seller of a birth control product be liable if it could be shown an egg was released and was fertilized, but that the pill caused the resulting person not to implant and grow?

Backers, who point out Mississippi would be the first to have such a broad definition of person, say such uncertainties can be dealt after the amendment passes. They believe the most important thing to do is vote "yes." They are wrong.

They will keep wanted babies from being born without doing anything to limit abortions of unwanted babies.

For those who like numbers, the Kaiser Family Foundation reports that no state has a lower rate of abortions than Mississippi. Here, it is five of every 1,000 pregnancies in women 15-44. (That may be misleading because our neighbors, Tennessee, Alabama and Arkansas, report higher-than-average numbers of nonresidents at their clinics.) In other states with fewer regulations and direct or indirect public funding, the rate is up to six times greater. Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, New York, Delaware, Kansas, Nevada and Washington all have rates of 17 to 31 abortions per 1,000 pregnancies.

America has struggled with this issue. Amid lots of name-calling, it still comes down to one group that prefers to let others make their own reproductive decisions and another that can't abide the thought of anyone choosing to end a life in the making and is firmly convinced society must use laws to protect the unborn.

Sadly, Initiative 26 has no chance of bridging this divide. It merely adds confusion and, worse, works directly against people who sincerely want children.

Charlie Mitchell is a Mississippi journalist. Write to him at Box 1, University, MS 38677, or email cmitchell43@yahoo.com.