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1.: 'Personhood' Amendment on Colorado Ballot From: Stephen Meyer

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1.: 'Personhood' Amendment on Colorado Ballot

Posted by: "Stephen Meyer" Stephen276@comcast.net stephen_meyer_stemcells

Wed Oct 29, 2008 2:35 pm (PDT)

* <http://www.npr.org/templates/topics/topic.php?topicId=1003>
'Personhood' Amendment on Colorado Ballot
by Bente Birkeland

Listen Now [4 min 3 sec] add to playlist
[Kristi Burton in La Junta, Colo.] Enlarge
Kristen Wyatt
Kristi Burton, who helped write the personhood amendment, eats lunch
with supporters at Trinity Lutheran Church in La Junta, Colo. AP
"If you don't know you're pregnant ... and you drink
or do something dangerous -- or you do something problematic very early
on, and you're in Colorado or passing through Colorado -- have you
committed child abuse and endangerment?"Jessica Berg
Elsewhere On The Web
* Protect Families Protect Choices Coalition
<http://www.protectfamiliesprotectchoices.org/> * Colorado For
Equal Rights <http://www.coloradoforequalrights.com/>

All Things Considered
<http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=2> , October
29, 2008 · Colorado is one of several states facing a controversial
ballot measure this fall that could have far-reaching impacts on
abortion law. Amendment 48 would define "personhood" as beginning at the
moment of conception, giving fertilized human eggs the same
constitutional rights as a person.

The first of its kind in the U.S., the amendment is the brainchild of
21-year-old Kristi Burton, who says she wants to establish a concrete
definition of when life begins to protect unborn children. On a Sunday
in October, Burton drove three hours from her home near Colorado Springs
to speak at Life Church, an evangelical congregation in Fort Collins.

"Basically we're then directing our courts and our Legislature to say
now that an unborn child is defined as a person; you need to look at
that when making your laws," Burton said. She had set up a table
displaying pictures of babies, along with bumper stickers and
promotional DVDs to support her initiative. "If you'd like to get
involved, we have many materials you can pick up, and please do pray for
us. I really do believe that in the end, God is the one that fights the
battle."

Similar measures have been proposed in Mississippi, Montana and Georgia,
but Colorado is the only state to get enough signatures to put the
personhood amendment on the ballot. It's the latest tactic by the
anti-abortion movement to set the legal groundwork to overturn the
controversial Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in 1973.

Burton, who is studying at an online Christian law school, has been
working on the concept for the past two years and says an attorney
friend of hers wrote the amendment.

"I do believe that Roe v. Wade should be overturned," Burton says. "I
mean even a lot of people on the pro-choice side say it was a bad
decision made on bad law. And that's why we're trying to define a person
and that's why Roe v. Wade should be relooked at. At least present new
information."

As it stands, however, the amendment goes far beyond the issue of
abortion, raising a host of questions regarding which constitutional
rights a fertilized egg can logically be entitled to. Jessica Berg, a
professor of law and bioethics at Case Western Reserve University, says
the amendment could lead to some bizarre situations — such as
counting fertilized eggs in the state census and pregnant drivers using
the HOV lanes.

"If you don't know you're pregnant at that point, and you drink or do
something dangerous — or you do something problematic very early on,
and you're in Colorado or passing through Colorado — have you
committed child abuse and endangerment?" Berg wonders.

Berg says that as written, the amendment would classify all the
fertilized eggs used in fertility labs — which number in the
hundreds of thousands — as persons.

"You could never get rid of them," she says of the fertilized eggs.
"It's not clear whether you could freeze them, because we certainly
don't have a concept of freezing indefinitely a person. It's not clear
how you then adopt them — would you have to go through all the
normal adoption proceedings?"

The controversial amendment has divided the anti-abortion community. The
Colorado Catholic Conference worries that the courts would strike it
down and end up reaffirming current abortion laws, and Colorado's
anti-abortion Democratic governor, Bill Ritter, says the state could
rack up huge legal bills defending the amendment.

"[The amendment] is outside the bounds of present law, present
constitutional law," Ritter says. "It's just an extreme position by a
really narrow interest group, narrowly crafted, and it's the wrong
response."

The latest polls have the personhood amendment trailing by 15 percentage
points, with 16 percent of the electorate undecided. National Conference
of State Legislatures analyst Jennie Drage Bowser says even if it does
fail, she thinks other states will still copy it.

"When a ballot measure is tried as a new idea in one state, it's not at
all uncommon that that model is repeated in other states," she says. "So
I do think that people in the anti- abortion community are going to be
watching what happens in Colorado, and it could serve as a successful
model. At the very least, though, it's important because it is a new
strategy."

Should the amendment pass, both sides expect it would spend years being
litigated in the courts. Proponents hope it would be challenged all the
way to the U.S. Supreme Court to force a review of Roe v. Wade.

Bente Birkeland reports from Rocky Mountain Community Radio.
Related NPR Stories
* July 23, 2008Candidates Strongly Disagree On Abortion
<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92760943> *
Sep. 26, 2008Critics: Abortion Rule Would Impede Birth Control
<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95098405> *
Oct. 27, 2008South Dakotans Again Consider An Abortion Ban
<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95942981>

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