As Jason Salzman points out at Bigmedia.org, both Bob Beauprez (Colorado Republican candidate for governor) and Cory Gardner (Republican candidate for U.S. Senate) endorsed federal “personhood” bills to give just-fertilized zygotes full legal rights. “Beauprez supported federal personhood legislation in 2005,” Salzman notes, and Gardner is a current sponsor of “personhood” legislation.
Salzman concludes: “The question left hanging is, why would Beauprez (and Gardner) support personhood at the federal level but oppose it in Colorado when the results here would be the same?”
The obvious answer is that both candidates reasonably believe that endorsing Amendment 67—this year’s “personhood” ballot measure in Colorado—would be political suicide. From a strategic standpoint, probably the worst thing to happen to Republican candidates this year in Colorado is to have run with “personhood” on the ballot. The measure will certainly bring more left-leaning women to the polls, and it will remind all voters that “personhood” is very much a live issue with many Republican candidates.
For more on why I oppose so-called “personhood” laws, see the papers Diana Hsieh and I co-authored for the Objective Standard and for the Coalition for Secular Government.