Human Life Amendment
I want to speak quickly to something that is very disturbing to me, something that is happening in Colorado. If you haven’t gathered from my blog posts, I’m extremely liberal in my views. Therefore, it should be of no surprise that I am pro-choice.
Colorado Right to Life currently is trying to get enough signature to put an amendment on the November ballot. It’s called the Human Life Amendment. The wording of this very simple amendment is as follows:
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.
If you don’t understand this, this amendment would make a fertilized egg a human being in the State constitution! This blows my mind completely. If you want to argue that a fetus is a human being, that’s fine. We can have a discussion on that. However, to go this far as to suggest that a fertilized egg in the womb is a human being, it’s just … weird.
A group of individuals calling themselves, Protect Family – Protect Choice, recently held a rally on the capital steps. They represent a broad coaltion oppose to extending constitutional rights and due process to the unborn.
Mary Fairbanks, a doctor who teaches general-practice physicians at St. Anthony’s Family Medicine Residency, said the amendment was vague and deceptive.
” ‘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, D-Lakewood, one of 20 state legislators in the coalition, called the amendment “dangerous and misleading.”
It could trigger governmental investigations into miscarriages, restrict in-vitro fertilization by couples trying to conceive and limit birth-control methods, Boyd said.
In addition, can you image the havoc it would wreck on laws in this state? would a miscarriage be considered manslaughter? what about insurance? I’m speechless at the stupidity behind the Human Life Amendment. I don’t believe that an amendment like this will ever pass. I have some confidence in the intelligence of the people of Colorado. This is another example of the far right using a wedge issue during an election year. This is an attempt for the right to get people out to vote in November in an effort to elect John McCain. I already have an issue with pro-life people, but this is taking it too far. If these so called “Pro-life” people are truly for LIFE, how can they support a president waging an illegal war that is killing thousands of innocent people, how can they support a candidate that is willing to stay in Iraq for 100 years, how can they condone the killing of doctors and accept the bombings of planned parenthood facilities?
Colorado Right to Life is still in the process of gathering the 76,000 signature required to get it on the ballot. If you see one of them, please walk right pass them. Don’t argue with them and don’t sign some supposedly “unrelated” ballot proposal only to get suckered into signing this one. This is not worthy of our attention, especially during a time when we are facing economic downturn and still losing good people in a war that should have never been waged.
Go to www.squarestate.net/ to be updated on this issue and other issues affecting Colorado. In addition, please go out and support/vote/donate to Mark Udall and other Democratic candidates in both local and national elections.
