Colorado Abortion Advocates Launch Effort Against Abortion-Personhood Amdt
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 11, 2008
Denver, CO (LifeNews.com) — Abortion advocates in Colorado officially launched their campaign to oppose Amendment 48 on Wednesday with a rally at the Tivoli Center with 80 people. The amendment would define the beginning of human life as the point of conception and have potential ramifications for abortion and embryonic stem cell research.
The pro-abortion campaign’s tag line is that the measure "simply goes too far" as abortion advocates claim it could affect in-vitro fertilization and cause women to be investigated for miscarriages.
"This amendment does not respect family decisions," No on 48 Campaign director Fofi Mendez said, according to a Rocky Mountain News report.
She said it would open the door for courts to intervene in women’s medical decisions and she worries fertility clinics will face criminal charges.
But Amendment 48 author Kristi Burton says the constitutional amendment simply defines when human life begins. It is a precursor to prohibiting abortions in the state.
"They are missing the core issue of when life begins," she said. "That is what this is trying to establish."
"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.
Saying human life needs legal protection at every stage starting with its very beginning at the point of fertilization, Focus on the Family Action said in August that 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.
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.
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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