Colorado Abortion-Personhood Amendment Gets OK From Top Pro-Life Group

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Aug 6, 2008   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Colorado Abortion-Personhood Amendment Gets OK From Top Pro-Life Group

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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 6
, 2008

Denver, CO (LifeNews.com) — One of the nation’s leading pro-life groups has given a Colorado statewide ballot measure that would establish personhood for unborn children its stamp of approval. Focus on the Family has endorsed the measure that Colorado voters will consider when they go to the polls in November.

Amendment 48 would define unborn children as persons under state law from the moment of fertilization.

It could set off a statewide battle over abortion, embryonic stem cell research and other practices that kill people before birth.

Saying human life needs legal protection at every stage starting with its very beginning at the point of fertilization, Focus on the Family Action says pro-life voters should support the personhood amendment.

"A founding principle of Focus on the Family — and a driving belief of Dr. James Dobson’s — is that all human life is sacred and that life begins at the single-cell stage of human development," says Carrie Gordon Earll, a senior bioethics analyst with the group.

"Amendment 48 articulates this belief and challenges us to declare the inestimable worth of all members of the human family," she told LifeNews.com.

"The foundational message of Amendment 48 is clear: All human life has value. Colorado voters should support Amendment 48, and vote for it in November," Earll concluded.

Kristi Burton, the young Colorado woman who is the driving force behind the initiative, says she’s elated to get the group’s support.

"It’s fact that life has been cheapened over time and Amendment 48, by defining an unborn child as a ‘person,’ can restore the dignity and respect unborn children have lost," she said.

Not every pro-life group is on board with the initiative, with some saying abortion advocates would file a lawsuit against it and it would ultimately be overturned by the Supreme Court.

That, they say, could add to the case law that supports the Roe v. Wade decision that has allowed 35 years of virtually unlimited abortions.

To qualify Amendment 48, the pro-life group submitted almost twice as many signatures as necessary.

They needed 76,000 signatures to get the measure on the ballot but turned in 131,245 in May. The Secretary of State’s Office’s random sampling indicated that there were 103,377 valid signatures.

Abortion advocates have already staged rallies and are organizing efforts to defeat the measure at the polls in the fall. They are expected to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat it.

The Personhood Amendment states: "Be it Enacted by the People of the State of Colorado: SECTION 1. Article II of the constitution of the state of Colorado is amended BY THE ADDITION OF A NEW SECTION to read: Section 31. Person defined. As used in sections 3, 6, and 25 of Article II of the state constitution, the terms ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include any human being from the moment of fertilization."

Related web sites:
Colorado for Equal Rights – https://www.coloradoforequalrights.com

 

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