Abortion And Barack Obama

Via Hot Air:

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.

7-21-07 Roundup

Colorado Democrats move caucuses from March to February.

Best campaign nickname so far: "Tax 'em all Udall".

A "perfect storm" in Colorado in 2008? PPH thinks so. (more on the anti-abortion measure) David Harsanyi thinks it will hurt more than it will help--and create a mess in the process.

The Reality Of Partial-Birth Abortion

Sick. Nothing could justify this.

Colorado's Liberal Abortion Laws

Colorado's record on abortion is long and storied (and an indicator of just how purple the state has been--or at the very least, with libertarian leanings):

Mary Rita Urbish remembers perfectly the moment 40 years ago when Colorado became ground zero in the battle over abortion.

It was April 25, 1967 - the day a proposal by a legislator named Lamm was signed into law by a governor named Love, making the state the first in the nation to liberalize its abortion law. In that moment, as supporters cheered the potential end of illegal abortions, a social movement was born.

"I was so angry," said Urbish, one of the founders of Colorado Right to Life. "It's like a continuous loop in my mind that just runs and runs and runs and runs. It makes me mad to think about it, even now, 40 years later."

Future Gov. Richard Lamm was a freshman state legislator when he introduced the bill to overhaul Colorado's century-old abortion law. His proposal, based on the recommendations of the American Law Institute, allowed a three-doctor panel to approve abortions in cases of rape, incest, severe fetal defects, to save a woman's life or if the pregnancy threatened her physical or mental health.
. . .
"Prior to that bill, it was just totally illegal, and all the abortions were in back rooms," said John Bermingham, a Denver Republican who was the bill's chief Senate sponsor. "(The bill) just seemed like the right thing to do. Back-room abortions were disgraceful."

Until Roe v. Wade asserted judicial supremacy on the issue of abortion, states including Colorado recognized that legislation offered the most appropriate road to resolving differences over such a divisive issue.

The anniversary, of course, is nothing to celebrate, even if you support choice.