Egg producing stem cells found in mice have led to studies on humans to determine if women also produce these cells.

The research looks promising in humans and may offer hope to women struggling with infertility due to illness or age.

It was once thought that women are born with all of the eggs that they will ever produce but that theory is changing.

More studies need to be done to confirm stem cell findings and the implications that may derive from the discovery.

“Our current views of ovarian aging are incomplete. There’s much more to the story than simply the trickling away of a fixed pool of eggs,” said lead researcher Jonathan Tilly of Harvard’s Massachusetts General Hospital, who has long hunted these cells in a series of controversial studies.

If the 26th amendment in Mississippi passes it is.

The beginning of personhood?

Because the amendment would define a fertilized egg as a person with full legal rights, it could have an impact on a woman’s ability to get the morning-after pill or birth control pills that destroy fertilized eggs, and it could make in vitro fertilization treatments more difficult because it could become illegal to dispose of unused fertilized eggs. This could lead to a nationwide debate about women’s rights and abortion while setting up a possible challenge to the landmark Roe v. Wade case, which makes abortion legal.

The vote is upcoming in Mississippi to declare a fertilized ovum; human egg, a person.

The implications are vast and the arguments many, but in a state with the highest teenage pregnancy and STD rates it looks like the amendment will pass.

Physicians, scientists, women and hospital staff will face a host challenges to deal with the care of patients if this amendment passes.

There are great arguments on both sides.

Considering all the possibilities a new branch of legal practice may be necessary.