Colorado Supreme Court Approves "Fertilized Egg" Petitions For Next Year's Ballot

"Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution defining the term "person" to include any human being from the moment of fertilization as "person" is used in those provisions of the Colorado constitution relating to inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of law?"

Click here for a link to the CSC's decision, and a bit of background.

If the proposed ballot measure petition receives adequate support and goes before the voters in next year's election, expect not only the Senate race but also the Presidential campaigns to flog or assiduously avoid the issue (as is their wont) in what should be an already heated atmosphere, what with all the media attention the Democratic National Convention will bring to the state.

Proponents argue that the measure clarifies the defintion of a person, while opponents fear a back-door attempt to outlaw abortion. Let the harangues and ad hominem attacks begin:

The Colorado Supreme Court cleared the way Tuesday for an anti-abortion group to collect signatures for a ballot measure that would define a fertilized egg as a person.

The court approved the language of the proposal, rejecting a challenge from abortion-rights supporters who argued it was misleading and dealt with more than one subject in violation of the state constitution.

If approved by voters, the measure would give fertilized eggs the state constitutional protections of inalienable rights, justice and due process.

"Proponents of this initiative have publicly stated that the goal is to make all abortion illegal — but nothing in the language of the initiative or its title even mentions abortion," Kathryn Wittneben of NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado said in a statement. "If that’s not misleading, I don’t know what is."

Wittneben said a NARAL board member was one of six people who challenged the State Title Board’s July approval of the initiative’s language.

Proponents, led by 20-year-old Kristi Burton of Peyton, argue that the initiative would simply define a human.

"It’s very clearly a single subject," Burton said. "If it’s a human being, it’s a person, and hey, they deserve equal rights under our law."

Burton and her group, Colorado for Equal Rights, now must collect 76,000 signatures to get the measure on the ballot.

Leave it to the MSM to once again label the measure's supporters as "anti-abortion" (not "pro-life"), as opposed to the "abortion-rights" activists such as NARAL.