Colorado Board OKs Language for Pro-Life Amendment Banning Abortions 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 2, 2007
Denver, CO (LifeNews.com) — A three member title board representing the Secretary of State has approved the final language for a possible statewide constitutional amendment in Colorado that could go before voters in 2008. The amendment would define a human being and the beginning of life as starting at fertilization.
That would result in full legal protection for unborn children from that point forward and the effect of banning all abortions in the state.
The board on Wednesday held a second hearing on the language because of an appeal from abortion advocates.
It rejected objections that the amendment does not cover a single subject as required by state law but affects three sections of the state constitution.
Pro-abortion groups also labeled the language confusing and misleading.
Cathryn Hazouri, the director of the Colorado chapter of the ACLU, said the fact that advocates of the amendment and members of the board referred to an unborn child as a fetus was an indication the wording is deceptive.
"We are not talking about a fetus. It is a fertilized egg," the Denver Post reported her telling the board. "If you gentlemen don’t know the difference, how do you expect the average Colorado voter to understand?"
Deputy Secretary of State William Hobbs said the board doesn’t decide if an amendment is legitimate but only if the language is legal and good enough to go before voters.
Dan Domenico, of the attorney general’s office and a member of the board, also said the panel did not "have the authority to reject a measure because we can’t predict all its effects … or because voters might not consider all the implications."
Colorado for Equal Rights, a group backed by a pro-life teenager and pro-life attorney Mark Meuser is behind the amendment, which defines "the term ‘person’ to include any human being from the moment of fertilization as ‘person’ is used in those provisions of the Colorado Constitution relating to inalienable rights, equality of justice and due process of law."
Meuser’s group now has to collect 76,000 signatures over the next six months to get it on the ballot.
Abortion advocates promise to wage an intense war against the ballot proposal if it appears before state voters.
"The proponents of this initiative have been clear. Their intent is to destroy the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision which legalized abortion," Planned Parenthood president Vicki Cowart told the newspaper.
