Roundup: Activists In Colorado Campaigning Hard For Personhood
by Robin Marty, RH Reality Check
July 30, 2010 - 9:38am (Print)
The campaign in Colorado over the idea that a fertilized egg is a person is already reaching fevered heights. But as one editorial from the Aurora Sentinel states, is ridiculous that there is a campaign at all.
There’s no need for Colorado voters to wait for a deep analysis closer to Election Day to know that Amendment 62 is deeply flawed.
While science and medicine have helped improve the viability of infant humans by keeping prematurely born babies alive and treating a wide variety of lethal maladies, science and people have agreed for generations that we become “persons” at birth.
Anti-abortion extremists have descended again on the state, hoping to persuade unsuspecting voters that their initiative, back for the second time, offers a good way to reduce the number of abortions in Colorado, and the other 40 states this misguided measure appears on the ballot.
The premise, which failed miserable in 2008, would change state law to define “personhood” as the moment of conception.
If this sounds familiar, it is. Colorado voters just last year trounced this notion by a 3-1 margin.
It’s a dangerous and misguided idea that even the most-ardent critics of legalized abortion helped work to defeat last time.
It’s unnecessary. The U.S. Constitution already lays out who the country grants rights to: anyone born of another U.S. citizen; or someone born inside the country.
The notion that a person is created each and every time a human egg is fertilized is as nonsensical as endowing constitutional rights to female ovaries themselves or uterine cells.
However, Amendment 62 has gotten another high profile backer though in former congressman Tom Tancredo, who declared yesterday that he will be running for governor of Colorado on a third party ticket. The Denver Daily reports:
Former Congressman Tom Tancredo wants to enforce state immigration laws, reform the state employees' pension system, limit the power of unions, and let the people vote on all taxes and fees, if elected governor.
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He also made no apologies for adopting the GOP's so-called "Platform for Prosperity," a platform state Republicans rolled out last year in an attempt to unify the party and throw support behind Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis. Tancredo points out that he co-wrote the platform with State Sen. Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction.
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He also said he supports medical marijuana and dispensaries, calling it a necessary "experiment." And Tancredo said he supports a controversial ballot proposal, Amendment 62 (Personhood), that would essentially ban abortions in Colorado.
Need further evidence that Amendment 62 is really about banning abortion and many forms of birth control, rather than this alleged ideal of "personhood?" Guess where some of its supporters were earlier this week.
That's right, protesting a Catholic hospital, trying to get them to fire a doctor who provides abortions.
Anti-abortion protesters were about 60 strong outside Mercy Regional Medical Center on Thursday to protest the hospital's affiliation with local obstetrician-gynecologist Richard Grossman.
Protesters waved signs that said such things as "Dr. Grossman is an abortionist" and "Abortion Kills Children," and others purporting to depict aborted fetuses at drivers entering the hospital's parking lot. Some drivers honked at the protesters; others revved their engines.
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Many speakers urged support of Amendment 62, which will appear on the November ballot. If approved, the measure would define "person" in the Colorado Constitution as "every human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being."
Mini Roundup: Blossom is all grown up and all about homebirths. But she's also hanging with people who think if a baby doesn't survive a homebirth, it was "not favored evolutionarily." As Joey would say, "Whoa!"
July 29, 2010
Pro-Abortion Elena Kagan Called "Dangerous" as Fourth Republican Backs Her - LifeNews.com
Abortion coverage restricted in high-risk insurance pools - The Hill
Kansas Senate Candidate Todd Tiahrt Gets Pro-Life Group's Endorsement - LifeNews.com
House bill would ban federal abortion funding - The Hill
Obama agenda: The fallout from Arizona - msnbc.com
US Senate candidate defends anti-abortion stance - El Dorado Times
High-Risk Health Insurance Pool Rules Bar Abortions, Limit Patient Costs - Kaiser Health News
Boxer tries to highlight differences on abortion - San Jose Mercury News
Obama Admin Bows to Pressure, Appears to Limit Abortion Funding in Health Care - LifeNews.com
Today's Lady News: Federal Abortion-Funding Ban Introduced In Congress - The Frisky
Expelling unwed mothers banned in Philippines - Newsdesk
Editorial: Beware of strangers trying to sell Colorado on personhood - The Aurora Sentinel
“Inappropriate subject matter” - California Catholic Daily
Britain to focus on abortion, contraception in development programs - U.S. Catholic magazine
Abortion Clinic Closes After Doctor Diagnosed With Cancer - KHBS-KHOG Northwest Arkansas
High-risk health insurance pools to bar abortion coverage - MiamiHerald.com
Republicans get everything they want and still demand more - Daily Kos
No plans to make abortion harder: Abbott - Sydney Morning Herald
Perriello: Group's claim that bill would fund abortions wrong - Lynchburg News and Advance
Theologian argues against morality of contraception - Houston Chronicle
Students get to talking about sex and babies – TODAYonline
Funding Planned Parenthood is Unconstitutional: Senator - NBC Dallas-Fort Worth
Governor Christie's Family Planning Veto -- New Jersey's Women Take the Heat - Huffington Post
Uganda needs new strategies to combat HIV - New Vision
Women, The Silent Bearers of HIV Burdens – MediaGlobal
Female Condoms, HIV Prevention: Will New Version Be Hit...or Dud? - CBS News
Condom use cuts men's HPV risk - NDTV.com
Banks, Babies and Biases - Huffington Post
How old is too old? Pregnancy in older women investigated – WTVR
Chained Childbirth - Reason Online
The endless protest - Milwaukee News Buzz
July 30, 2010
Anti-abortion advocates protest local OB/GYN's ties to Mercy - The Durango Herald
'Tanc Tough' Tancredo makes it official - Denver Daily News
In Michigan governor race, GOP has 3-way toss-up - Detroit Free Press
Charge: US promoting abortion in Kenya - BP News
Family planning prevents abortion – HeraldNet
Abortion advocates caught off guard – Politico
Group Opposing Alaska Parental Notification Initiative Reports More Money Than ... - Medical News Today
UK announces 'unprecedented focus' on contraception, 'safe' abortion in aid to ... - Catholic Culture
NJ Family Planning Clinics Cut Services Following Christie's Budget Veto - Medical News Today
CA Experts Dispute Report That Claims Circumcision Could Halt HIV Cases - Public News Service
HIV/AIDS patients will get their medications after all - NorthJersey.com
Study: Family Values Turned Upside Down? - Public News Service
This time, though, the doctor in charge handled everything differently. She spoke to the patients honestly and in a completely different tone. She asked the parents what they wanted out of the short time they might have with their baby.
They cried at first, but then they stopped. They cleaned the baby up and dressed him in clothes his grandparents had bought. And they took him out.
They were gone for a few hours, and then they came back. They allowed us to give the baby drugs to comfort him. They held him, as a family, as he quietly passed.
I remember quite clearly his sister was in the room. She was about six. I asked her how they had spent the day. She told me how they had taken the baby to the park to see the water. They had brought him to family members so everyone could hold him. They showed him the sun and let him lay in the grass and let a dog lick his face. Her mother was listening in at the end, and somehow smiling.
Some months later, I ran into the mother in a different part of the hospital. She remembered me, and thanked me for all I had done. I remarked that I hadn't done much; they had cared for the baby.
"No," she replied. "Without all of you, he never would have known what chocolate ice cream tastes like."
I spent four years in medical school learning how the body works, how it can break down, and how to repair it. I spent three more learning how to give the right drugs and do the right procedures to fight illness. And in all the time I've been a doctor, I honestly don't know if I've ever done any more good than helping to stop the system so that baby, and that family, could share some ice cream.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-e-carroll/its-the-life-in-end-of-li_b_664152.html
