Electa Draper writes for The Denver Post today:
The Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday gave the go-ahead to proponents of a ballot initiative seeking to amend the state constitution in 2008 to define personhood as a fertilized egg. …
The amendment, if approved by voters, would extend constitutional protections from the moment of conception, guaranteeing every fertilized egg the right to life, liberty, equality of justice and due process of law.
Kathryn Wittenben, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado, argued that the measure is misleading, reports Draper: “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.”
But the “initiative’s 20-year-old proponent, Kristi Burton, founder of Colorado for Equal Rights,” was undeterred: “This is a very simple petition. That’s all we need… The people of Colorado will support protecting human life at every stage. More than that, we have God. And he is enough.”
And Dinesh D’Souza wonders why atheists bother to criticize Christianity and its politics?
Diana Hsieh points out the inevitable consequences, should the measure pass (which is highly unlikely). Hsieh mentions a “horrifying story of a woman allowed to die of a totally non-viable ectopic pregnancy due to Nigaragua’s strict anti-abortion law.”
Here is a summary from the original article:
Two weeks after Olga Reyes danced at her wedding, her bloated and disfigured body was laid to rest in an open coffin — the victim, her husband and some experts say, of Nicaragua’s new no-exceptions ban on abortion.
Reyes, a 22-year-old law student, suffered an ectopic pregnancy. The fetus develops outside the uterus, cannot survive and causes bleeding that endangers the mother. But doctors seemed afraid to treat her because of the anti-abortion law, said husband Agustin Perez. By the time they took action, it was too late.
And this is what is called the “culture of life.”