Be it Enacted by the People of the State of Colorado:
SECTION 1. Article II of the constitution of the state of Colorado is amended BY THE ADDITION OF A NEW SECTION to read:
Section 31. Person defined. As used in sections 3, 6, and 25 of Article II of the state constitution, the terms "person" or "persons" shall include any human being from the moment of fertilization.The measure developed through a grass roots campaign by Colorado for Equal Rights, not to be confused with the group Equal Rights Colorado.
Colorado should be a swing state this year. This may help to increase the turnout for social conservatives who may have stayed home this election.
The law is an obvious attempt to limit abortions though the implications of this amendment are quite vague. Would it be murder if a mother had a miscarriage,? What if the egg were fertilized but there was no implantation? Where do we draw the line?
I am not sure if this initiative will pass, but it raises some questions about how social conservatives will fight the election.
2 comments:
The implications aren't terribly vague, as states like Indiana and Missouri have attempted similar language (succeeding in the case of Indiana, where many women have to cross the state line into Ohio to have an abortion). The implication is that it will reduce the number of abortions because it would put abortion providers at risk of being charged with murder. If providers are too scared they'll be face such charges (or even have to go through the fights associated with the legal preliminaries), then, the logic goes, they'll be less inclined to perform abortions.
The rhetoric of fear...hmmm, sounds familiar.
I understand the likely consequences of this amendment as trying to limit the number of abortions through a "chilling effect." What I am interested is in finding the logical limitations to the amendment.
Colorado has had some strange state initiatives. In Romer v. Evans, the Supreme Court struck down an amendment that that would have prevented any city, town or county in the state from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action to protect homosexual citizens from discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation. Even if this were to pass, it may not stand.
Post a Comment