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Colorado personhood amendment takes aim at Roe

Colorado, the first state that decriminalized abortion, could strike at the heart of Roe v. Wade this fall if voters adopt a proposed constitutional amendment that gives protections to people from the moment of conception, reports Baptist Press.

Colorado for Equal Rights, the group behind the amendment, turned in approximately 131,000 signatures May 13, significantly more than the 76,000 needed. The signatures have yet to be validated, although it appears supporters have more than enough.

The amendment was the idea of 20-year-old Kristi Burton, who says she's had a passion for the pro-life movement since age 13. Roughly 18 months ago she said she felt a burden to start a movement, and upon consultation with an attorney, her family and friends, decided to launch the amendment campaign.

"In a way it's a new approach in the pro-life movement," she said during a teleconference the day the signatures were submitted. "We're saying, before we can have other effective pro-life laws, we need to lay the foundation and first of all answer the question, 'What is the unborn child?' Of course, medically speaking and scientifically speaking, [it is] a person. We just need to put that into our laws.... It's not just what the legislature and the courts say, it's what the people say."

The core of the proposed amendment is only 15 words and states, "The term 'person' or 'persons' shall include any human being from the moment of conception."

The personhood debate is significant: In the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, writing for the majority, stated that if personhood for the unborn is established, then the case for abortion "collapses" because "the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [Fourteenth] Amendment."

Although the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973, seven years earlier, in 1967, Colorado decriminalized abortion in cases of rape, incest, the health of the mother or in cases when the unborn baby was disabled.

"It started here. It has to end here," said 27-year-old Keith Mason, the campaign director for Colorado for Equal Rights.

The signature drive had more than 1,100 volunteers and the support of approximately 500 churches, Burton said. It also has the support of Gerald Wilberforce, the great-great grandson of 19th-century British abolitionist William Wilberforce, the subject of the 2007 movie "Amazing Grace." Gerald Wilberforce e-mailed Mason after the signatures were submitted, congratulating him. Pro-lifers in Montana also are trying to get a personhood amendment on the ballot (information is available at www.life2008.org).

Most observers believe that no more than four justices oppose Roe and that the court isn't ready to overturn the infamous ruling. It would take five votes to strike it down. Of course, by the time any case challenging Roe makes it to the court, its composition could have changed.

The amendment, Mason said, has "massive implications" for the pro-life movement nationwide.

"Going after personhood changes the abortion debate in America.... It changes the dynamics," he said. "We are now fighting on ground that we can win."

Burton said the amendment is "laying a foundation" for the pro-life movement and taking a stand on the belief that "every child is precious."

"We're ... trying to bring our country back to where we should be," she said. "We should be a country that sets the example for the world and that realizes every live is precious, every life counts."

The proposed amendment specifically states that the definition of person applies to three sections in the Colorado constitution -- the section declaring that citizens have certain "inalienable rights," the section guaranteeing equality of justice and the section guaranteeing due process of law. If the amendment is adopted, then every unborn person from conception would be guaranteed, among other things, the "right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties."

The proposed amendment will draw organizations nationwide from both sides of the debate and likely will cost millions of dollars. One opposition group, known as "Protect Families, Protect Choice," is asserting that the amendment not only will ban abortion but also fertility treatments and certain types of birth control. Many pro-choice advocates consider the so-called morning-after pill, which can cause chemical abortions, to be a type of "birth control."

But supporters are undeterred. Mason said the proposed amendment will force pro-choicers to answer a fundamental question, "What is the unborn?" -- which, he said, pro-choice groups have not answered sufficiently.

"[I]f it's a blob of tissue, if it's a blob of cells, and it's nothing -- abortion shouldn't be a big deal," he said. "But if it's a unique individual, a unique human being, then it deserves our protection and love."

The fact that the two faces of the campaign are both under 30 bodes well for the pro-live movement, said Mason, who calls the successful signature effort a movement of God.

"No matter if we see victory here or not [in November], we're going to keep going and keep marching forward until we win," he said. "That mindset and that attitude -- it's like a shot of adrenaline in the arm for pro-lifers who've been so faithful and going out and praying and trying to do what they can for life."

[05/16/2008]

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