Organizers of Personhood USA plan to mount campaigns to put the same amendment before voters wherever citizens can initiate petitions. Even though Colorado voters rejected Amendment 48 by a 3-1 margin, Personhood USA founder Cal Zastrow told LifeNews.com, “we will continue to advocate for the pre-born regardless of polls or winning or losing elections.”

Now, if you don’t want to take no for an answer, that’s certainly your right. I am curious, though – how emphatically and loudly does the word NO have to be spoken before you understand? Nobody wants this here. It’s craziness of the worst possible kind. It’s been voted down resoundingly; hell, even President-elect Obama didn’t win by this much.

I’m a little hesitant to link this, but it’s important to see what rational people are up against with this group: the website for Personhood USA. Maybe this will mark the end of citizen petitions for amendments to state Constitutions: it’s way, way too easy for any group to change a state Constitution (re: Prop 8 in CA), and it’s time to put an end to it.

In Colorado, we have the dubious distinction of having the longest ballot in the US – and our longest ballot ever. 18 separate initiatives/Constitutional amendment proposals. The Handy Voter Helper book looks like a paperback SF novel. The amendment/ballot initiative that has me wound up the most, for obvious reasons, is Amendment 48 (.pdf), but there are plenty of other questions to consider this year. Questions like: will we allow union organizing in our state, will our county schools continue to function, funding for higher education…

I found the arrangement of Amendment 48 in our Handy Voter Helper Book (HVHB) to be interesting. For every item on the ballot, there are the arguments for and the arguments against. The book’s arranged in such a way that this particular amendment has the wording on the left hand page and the arguments for on the other. To see the arguments against, one has to turn the page – if, in fact, one would want to see the arguments against. For my money, there are many, many arguments against this one.

In case you’re wondering, Amendment 48 defines a zygote as a person entitled to equal protection and representation under the laws of the state of Colorado. As listed in the HVHB, the only real argument for the amendment is that it would make all abortions illegal in our state. All. Without exception in any case whatsoever. Period.

There are plenty of arguments against, at least in my mind:

• In vitro fertilization would be illegal in the state of Colorado.
• Birth control, including the emergency contraceptive Plan B, would be illegal in the state of Colorado.
• Abortion would be illegal in every circumstance, including in cases of rape, incest, and the endangerment of the health/life of the mother.

There are a lot more, including the strong likelihood that women who miscarry might be placed under investigation just in case it was “their fault”.

In truth, I don’t care all that much if you believe that this particular amendment is a good and just addition to our state Constitution. Just go vote. Make sure before you go to the polls that you are indeed registered in the county where you live, and that all the information the county has for you is correct. Go vote.

Wendy Norris is liveblogging a talk at The Big Tent today about Amendment 48. It’s really interesting stuff, if a little (well, now, maybe not just a little) scary.

I know that there is the strong possibility that women (like me) who have experienced multiple miscarriages could be subject to criminal investigations if this becomes law. However, I never even thought of this:

Dr. Ruben Alvero, an OB-GYN and expert in infertility, speaks to the suffering that infertile couples experience with the many indignities of medical treatments to become pregnancy.

130,000 IVF treatments took place in the U.S. last year. He discusses the far-reaching affects of the Colorado ballot measure that would prevent infertile couples from getting assistance to start their families.

“It’s bad medicine and bad science and goes too far,” said Alvero.

What exactly would happen to the unused, fertilized zygotes after an IVF procedure? Would potential parents be compelled to have their zygotes adopted by another couple, possibly without their knowledge? This really scares me, even more than what could happen to me personally if the amendment becomes law. If reactionaries – I won’t dignify them with the term “conservatives” any longer, thank you, because that’s not what they are – insist that all life is sacred, how about helping to create life when it would otherwise be impossible?

When you support Amendment 48, these are the type of people with whom you are aligning yourselves. Read this carefully. Consider if this is the message you want to send to your fellow Coloradans; that this type of speech is fine with you, if it produces the desired result. Then your choice is clear: vote on behalf of women who would like a say in their own reproductive health choices, or vote on behalf of narrow-minded racist bigots.

Love,
Mommy.

There are going to be a lot more posts similar to this one as we get closer to November…

UPDATE: From the comments below: Here’s a link to a paper about Amendment 48; Amendment 48 is Anti-Life: Why it Matters That a Fertilized Egg is Not a Person, by Ari Armstrong and Diana Hsieh of the Coalition for Secular Government (link is to a .pdf file).

Colorado has played a prominent role in the abortion debate since 1967, when the state was the first in the nation to legalize abortion in cases of rape, incest or danger to the mother’s life.

Considering the dearth of places in which to obtain an abortion in the state right now, it was really surprising.

This part is incredibly sobering, and shows the true intent of the amendement. Even though the wording had to be changed in order to comply with our state’s one-issue-per-amendment rule, the intent is to ban both abortion and contraception/contraception access in our state. Period.

As I said in the comment to the post below, I would love to hear more moderate voices about this issue. For some reason, people who are willing to talk about this issue are ceding the debate to people like Colorado Right to Life, which definitely isn’t as benign an organization as it sounds.

I urgew all my fellow Coloradoans to read all four articles in the series. Read them carefully, and remember them when you go to vote in November.