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    • E. Christian Brugger, D.Phil. – E. Christian Brugger is a Senior Fellow of Ethics and Director of the Fellows Program at the Culture of Life Foundation in Washington, D.C. and the J. Francis Cardinal Stafford Professor of Moral Theology at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado. He has Master degrees in moral theology and moral philosophy from Seton Hall, Harvard and Oxford Universities and received his D.Phil. (Ph.D.) in Christian ethics from Oxford in 2000.  Christian has published over 200 articles in scholarly and popular periodicals on topics in bioethics, sexual ethics, natural law theory, as well as the interdisciplinary field of psychology and Christian anthropology.  He lives on a farm in Evergreen, Colorado, with his wife Melissa and five children.
    • Helen Alvaré, J.D. – Helen Alvaré, J.D. is Honorary Fellow in Law at the Culture of Life Foundation.   Helen is an Associate Professor of Law at the George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Virginia where she teaches and publishes in the areas of property law, family law, and Catholic social thought. Professor Alvaré serves as Consultor for the Pontifical Council for the Laity, Senior Fellow at the Witherspoon Institute where she chairs the Conscience Protection Task Force, is President of the Chiaroscuro Foundation and most recently Editor and Co-Author of Breaking Through: Catholic Women Speak for Themselves.From 2000 to Spring 2008, Professor Alvare taught at the Catholic University Columbus School of Law. Professor Alvare also lectures widely in the United States and Europe on matters concerning marriage, family and respect for human life. She is a consultant to ABC News and to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Marriage and Pro-Life Committees. In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI named Professor Alvare a Consultor to the Pontifical Council for the Laity.From 1987-2000, Professor Alvare was an attorney with the USCCB’s General Counsel Office and director of information and planning for the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities. In these positions, she testified before the…
    • Jennifer Kimball Watson, Be.L. – Jennifer Kimball Watson joined Culture of Life Foundation as Executive Director in November of 2007. She is an Adjunct Professor of Bioethics at the Ave Maria School of Law in Naples, F.L.. Previous to her work with the Culture of Life Foundation Jennifer was a Wilbur Fellow of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal located in Michigan. Jennifer earned a Licentiate in Bioethics from the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum School of Bioethics in Rome.  Her prior undergraduate studies were in International Administration and Government Policy at the Evergreen State College in Washington State.Jennifer’s areas of specialization include Eugenics in Artificial Reproductive Technologies, Heterologous Adoption and Transfer of Embryos, The Womb in Reproductive Technologies, and the Role and Significance of The Medical Act. She interviews with National Conservative and Christian Radio Syndicates as well as several foreign and secular reporters. Jennifer has spoken on the dignity of women and women’s social issues to various audiences since 1999 and has spent several years in advocacy work with various international organizations in the field of life sciences. From 2000 to 2006 she recruited and coordinated grass-roots social policy efforts that consisted of a public and private sector network of professionals and academics…
    • Margaret Datiles Watts, J.D. – Margaret Datiles Watts, J.D., is Culture of Life Foundation’s Associate Fellow in Law. Maggie is member of Washington, D.C. and Maryland bar associations.  She holds a B.A. in Philosophy (Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude) and a Certificate in Classical Philosophy from the University Honors Program at The Catholic University of America. She earned a Juris Doctorate from Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America, where she served as a Research Fellow at CUA Law’s Marriage Law Project. She also studied Roman Law and EU Law at Magdalene College, University of Oxford, England.A former Fellow and Staff Counsel for Americans United for Life, Datiles co-authored an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court of the United States in the landmark partial birth abortion case, Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, et al., companion case to Gonzales v. Carhart (2007). She also advised legislators, policy groups and the media (radio and newspapers) on abortion and bioethics laws and drafted pro-life model legislation.Her areas of research and/or publication include legal issues surrounding abortion, government funding restrictions for abortion, contraception, healthcare rights of conscience, stem cell research, artificial reproductive technology, population decline, physician-assisted suicide, euthanasia, and same-sex marriage.She currently publishes articles…
    • William E. May – William E. May is Senior Research Fellow of the Culture of Life Foundation and emeritus Michael J. McGivney Professor of Moral Theology at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where he taught the academic years from 1991 through 2008 after teaching for 20 years at The Catholic University of America. He is the author of more than a dozen books. The 2nd edition of his Catholic Bioethics and the Gift of Human Life was published by Our Sunday Visitor (2008), and a substantively revised 3rd edition is scheduled for publication in 2013. In 2003 Our Sunday Visitor published a revised and expanded edition of his Introduction to Moral Theology. Among his other books are: Marriage: The Rock on Which the Family Is Built (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1995; 2nd revised edition, 2009)); and, with Ronald Lawler OFM Cap and Joseph Boyle, Catholic Sexual Ethics (rev. and enlarged ed. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 1998; 2nd rev. edition, 1998; a 3rd edition, substantively revised by May alone, was published in 2011); Theology of the Body: Genesis and Growth (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 2010) He has published more…
    • Frank J. Moncher, Ph.D. – Dr. Frank Moncher received his Ph.D. in Clinical-Community Psychology from the University of South Carolina in 1992, following which he spent several years on faculty of the Medical College of Georgia, with a focus on Adolescent Intensive Services. In 2000 he moved to the Washington, DC area to teach at a graduate school of psychology which had a mission of integrating the science of psychology in the context of the Catholic Christian view of the human person. Concurrent with this, over the past 12 years he has consulted with 11 different religious orders and 4 dioceses to provide psychological evaluations of aspirants and candidates, as well as consulting with different diocesan marriage tribunals.His research interests include the integration of Catholic thought into psychotherapy, child and family development issues, and integrated models of assessment of candidates for the priesthood and religious life. Frank is published in Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Human Services, Adolescence, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Edification, and the Journal of Psychology and Christianity, as well as contributing to several book chapters on children, families, and religious issues.Since 2010, Dr. Moncher has worked for the Diocese of Arlington and Catholic Charities as a psychologist and consultant.  His…
    • Steve Soukup – Fellow in Culture and Economy Steve Soukup is the Vice President and Publisher of The Political Forum, an “independent research provider” that delivers research and consulting services to the institutional investment community, with an emphasis on economic, social, political, and geopolitical events that are likely to have an impact on the financial markets in the United States and abroad. Mr. Soukup has followed politics and federal regulatory policy for the financial community since coming to Washington in 1996, when he joined Mark Melcher at the award-winning Washington-research office of Prudential Securities. While at Prudential, he was part of the Washington team that placed first in Institutional Investor magazine’s annual analyst survey for eight years in a row. Mr. Soukup left Prudential with Mr. Melcher to join Lehman Brothers in the fall of 2000 and stayed there for two years, before leaving early in 2003 to become a partner at The Political Forum. While at Lehman, Mr. Soukup authored macro-political commentary and followed policy developments in the Natural Resources sector group, focusing on agriculture and energy policy. He also headed Lehman’s industry-leading analysis of asbestos litigation reform efforts. At The Political Forum, Mr. Soukup was initially the editor and junior partner,…
    • Dr. Pilar Calva, M.D. – Dr. Calva is a medical doctor specializing in Human Genetics with a Cytogenetics subspecialty from The University of Paris, France. In Paris, she was the under-study to the world-renowned Professor Jerome Lejeune, who is considered by some to be the father of modern genetics. In 1958, Lejeune discovered that an extra 21st chromosome is responsible for Down syndrome, or Trisomy 21. Lejeune dedicated his life tirelessly and unfailingly to defend the unborn, especially those with Down syndrome, testifying before scientific conferences and lawmakers. He was appointed by Pope John Paul II as the first President of the Pontifical Academy for Life. In Dr. Calva’s own words: When I arrived in France, I lived a life divided between faith and reason. I thought that from Monday to Saturday, I put on my white coat for my scientific tasks, and Sunday was the day I took off the white coat, put on my crucifix and dedicated myself to my religious duties. Professor Lejeune truly converted me, making me see that one can wear the white coat and the cross, at the same time. That is, one can fly with the wing of faith and the wing of reason. Inspired by the life…
    • Elyse M. Smith – Elyse M. Smith is an associate attorney with a northern Virginia law firm working in nonprofit and church law, estate planning, and civil litigation. Ms. Smith graduated magna cum laude from Ave Maria School of Law in Naples, Florida, where she served on Law Review and was published in the Ave Maria International Law Journal. She was named “Most Dedicated Editor” for her work on Law Review. Ms. Smith earned her bachelor’s degree in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia.  
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  >  Issue Briefs  >  Life  >  MISSISSIPPI PERSONHOOD AMENDMENT SHOULD BE SUPPORTED

MISSISSIPPI PERSONHOOD AMENDMENT SHOULD BE SUPPORTED

Posted: November 4, 2011
By: E. Christian Brugger, D.Phil.
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If Mississippi’s Initiative 26 (the “personhood initiative” or “PI”) passes next Tuesday, its state constitution will be amended to read : “Person defined. “The term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.”

The New York Times has found this so threatening that it’s dedicated three pieces (1 , 2 , 3 ) in the last 8 days to persuading people against it.  The Washington Post’s eager atheist Susan Jacoby tells us that the “pernicious” initiative is based on “religious extremism and ignorance of human anatomy and biology”.  The LA Times quotes a Mississippi law professor—with entirely too much time on his hands—as saying that if the initiative passes, unsuspecting women who consume alcohol or engage in “a strenuous physical competition” may be exposed to criminal prosecution.  Other nervous journalists tell us that the law would force doctors to let women die on their floors, prohibit the use of the morning after pill “in all instances”, outlaw IUDs, shut down IVF clinics, permit religious interference with the female reproductive system, and require the prosecution of women who miscarry.  Pro-aborts haven’t gotten this worked up since Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey urged the High Court in 1992 to overturn Roe v. Wade as having been wrongly decided.

The favorite talking point of pro-choicers is that, because the initiative is so extreme, it has even “split the anti-abortion movement .”  There’s a modicum of truth to this.  But the “split” has nothing to do with the intent of the initiative to secure legal protections for all human beings from fertilization.  The split is over strategy.  Although Mississippi’s largest Christian denomination, the Mississippi Baptist Convention  backs the PI, as well as the American Family Association, the Family Research Council, and influential Republican pundits such as former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee, the initiative is not supported by two of the most influential pro-life voices in the U.S., the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and National Right to Life (NRL). 

Neither group is a newcomer to the concept of a personhood amendment.  And both have long supported federal initiatives to amend the U.S. Constitution to define nascent human life as constitutionally protected persons.  But over the past five years, Catholic bishops and the NRL have consistently discouraged similar state initiatives.  In 2007 Georgia Right to Life introduced in the state legislature a Human Life Amendment (HR 536), which the Georgia Catholic Conference and National Right to Life refused to support. 

They likewise refused to support two ballot initiatives in Colorado aimed at constitutionally defining preborn human beings as persons.  Both measures failed miserably (in 2008, by an enormous percentage margin of 73-27, and in 2010, by a 70-30 margin).  But when it comes to social issues, Mississippi and Colorado may as well be separate countries.  (Remember, Colorado was the first state to legalize abortion in 1967 under limited circumstances.)  Both supporters and opponents of Mississippi’s PI believe that the proposal is likely to pass.

The opposition of U.S. bishops stems almost exclusively from the judgment that if states such as Colorado or Mississippi approve a personhood amendment, the success will be a Pyrrhic victory (winning a battle at the state level at the cost of losing the war at the federal).  The U.S. Constitution guarantees access to abortion via the so-called right to privacy.  If preborn human beings are guaranteed constitutional protection in Mississippi, most abortions there will be prohibited, setting up a challenge between the state and federal constitutions.  The amendment immediately will be challenged in the state or federal courts and will be ruled unconstitutional.  Pro-lifer backers will then petition the U.S. Supreme Court for a “writ of certiorari” (will ask the high court to review the lower court’s decision) and either “cert will be denied” (the Supreme Court will refuse to review the case), or if it agrees to hear the case, given its ideological make-up, will most likely rule against it.  By reaffirming Roe, the last state of affairs will be worse than the first.

The reasoning is plausible but not iron tight.  An appeal could take several years.  Can we be sure today what the Supreme Court will look like in several years?  Do we know that juridically answering Roe’s unsettled but all-important question of the status of the preborn will not pass constitutional muster?  Why?  Because of the indirect implications of such an answer for abortion ‘rights’?  Yes, maybe.  But the state also has an interest in settling the question of the status of the preborn; and Roe doesn’t answer the question, so Mississippi’s PI does not directly challenge Roe.  And gobs of facts in developmental biology are accessible today that weren’t when Blackmun wrote his infamously evasive words on personhood. 

For five years Catholic bishops have gone public in opposition to these initiatives.  How many more years will they continue?  If Obama gets re-elected and appoints even one more pro-Roe justice, will they become permanent opponents of state initiatives to extend constitutional protection to the unborn?  Hard-headed pragmatism is sometimes a justifiable way for Christian shepherds to proceed, but sometimes it’s not, especially if doing so offers a confusing witness to values that stand at the core of the Gospel.   At very least, testifying to a maligned truth always has some value, such as the truth of the personhood of human beings from fertilization.

But I believe the possibility of scandal needs to be seriously considered here.  Scandal is defined as leading another to commit serious sin.  This, of course, can be done intentionally.  But it also can be done unintentionally, as when one adopts a course of action that gives an ambiguous message on some gravely important matter.  For example, a priest frequents a pub with his sister (who happens to be a beautiful blond); somebody contemplating becoming a Catholic is having a beer on his way home from work and sees Father and his sister chatting cozily in the neighboring booth, doesn’t know they’re siblings, wrongly interprets the ambiguous message, and decides "ah, the Catholic Church is full of hypocrites", and stops his pursuit of full communion.  The priest would be culpable for wrongdoing for not foreseeing that his confusing example (although arising from an act that was in itself innocent) might wrongly but understandably be interpreted to the spiritual harm of others.

Catholics and non-Catholic alike in Georgia, Colorado, and Mississippi have expressed serious misgivings about the Catholic bishops’ approach to the question of personhood amendments in their states.  I know anecdotally from my own experience in Colorado that at least some good Catholics have lost trust in their bishops over the issue.  Some Protestant pro-life brothers and sisters have felt alienated.  And enemies of the Church, both within and without, have exploited the confusing example in criticisms against the Church.

Since the pragmatic argument is far from certain, and since opposing PIs risks scandal, I recommend that our bishops and other pro-life leaders, even those with misgivings, offer at least qualified support for Mississippi’s initiative and others like it; and urge Catholics and all citizens, after serious consideration of the issues at stake, to vote in the way they judge to be most effective in protecting the lives of human persons from fertilization to natural death.

 (c) Culture of Life Foundation 2011.  Reproduction granted with attribution required.

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