Colorado Pro-Life Group to Submit Enough Signatures for Abortion Amendment
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
May 12, 2008
Denver, CO (LifeNews.com) — The pro-life group leading the effort in Colorado to get a personhood proposal on the November ballot says it will submit enough signatures to state officials to qualify the measure. Members of Colorado for Equal Rights say they will have more than the requisite number of signatures the Secretary of State needs.
The measure would define unborn children as persons under state law from the moment of fertilization and it could set off a statewide battle over abortion, embryonic stem cell research and other practices that kill people before birth.
The pro-life group needs 76,047 signatures when it turns in its petitions to state officials on Tuesday.
"May 13th will be a day to be remembered as a defining moment in the effort to defend all human life," said Kristi Burton, the young woman who has organized the initiative.
She told LifeNews.com, "We are seeing an awakening of the powerful grassroots movement, and thousands of individuals along with myself are making the commitment not to rest until every human being is equally protected by love and by law."
"This amendment will establish a cornerstone for protecting human life in our society… and we all know this is the right thing to do," her group added. "We are giving Colorado voters an opportunity to vote their conscience and protect the most innocent and helpless ones among us."
Should the measure qualify, Colorado abortion advocates have already started a campaign to defeat it.
Members of the newly-formed pro-abortion group Protect Families, Protect Choices rallied on the capitol steps earlier this month and claimed the measure would violate women’s right to basic health care.
Mary Fairbanks, a doctor at St. Anthony’s Family Medicine Residency, told the Denver Post she opposes protecting unborn children and appeared to not understand basic fetal development facts.
"’The moment of ‘fertilization’ is not a medical definition and is almost impossible to determine outside a petri dish," Fairbanks said. "I believe this would endanger the lives of women in Colorado."
Sen. Betty Boyd, a Democrat from Lakewood and one of 20 pro-abortion legislators who have joined the new group, claimed the amendment is "dangerous and misleading."
Pro-life advocates in Colorado are split on the idea with some favoring the proposal and others saying it would be overturned in the courts as unconstitutional and that pro-life groups should continue fighting to change the Supreme Court and overturn Roe v. Wade, which allowed virtually unlimited abortions for the last 35 years.
Related web sites:
Colorado for Equal Rights – https://www.voteyescolorado.com
