Serena Joy casts her vote for Colorado to become the "Republic of Gilead"

I saw this on the Pharyngula blog, so there is a good chance that most of my readers have already seen this.

There is an initiative to amend the Colorado state constitution to redefine "person" to include any fertilized ovum.

From the PDF link to this law:
Amendment 48
Definition of Person

  1. Ballot Title: An amendment to the Colorado constitution defining the term "person"
  2. to include any human being from the moment of fertilization as "person" is used in those
  3. provisions of the Colorado constitution relating to inalienable rights, equality of justice,
  4. and due process of law.
  5. Text of Proposal:
  6. Be it Enacted by the People of the State of Colorado:
  7. SECTION 1. Article II of the constitution of the state of Colorado is amended BY THE
  8. ADDITION OF A NEW SECTION to read:
  9. Section 31. Person defined. AS USED IN SECTIONS 3, 6, AND 25 OF ARTICLE II OF
  10. THE STATE CONSTITUTION, THE TERMS "PERSON" OR "PERSONS" SHALL INCLUDE ANY
  11. HUMAN BEING FROM THE MOMENT OF FERTILIZATION.
It bears repeating that this is A REALLY BAD IDEA!

At one point in time I spent a few weeks hanging out on a "pro life" forum, asking questions, putting out my views, and being used as the local Internet piñata by those who rabidly supported the notion that any fertilized ovum had the exact same rights as any human.

I came to the conclusion that most of the followers in this movement have their hearts in the right place, but their ideals are NOT based upon reality, and if implemented can cause a great deal of harm. As for the leaders of these movements, it seems to me many of them jealously guard their leadership positions because of the authority that is granted through their organizations. (Randall Terry is a good example of how even this power corrupts.)


Miscarriage happens in as much as 20% of all recognized pregnancies, and maybe as often as 50% of all pregnancies. The lifestyle of the woman increases the risk factors of miscarriage, so it is possible, or even likely that a woman could be charged for manslaughter due to her risky lifestyle. Stress, exercise, prescribed medication for illness may all cause sub-optimal conditions that cause a blastocyst to fail to implant.

For example, sprinter and two time Gold medal winner Torri Edwards might, if she were sexually active during training for the 2008 Olympics, be guilty of "manslaughter" for failing to recognize that her training regime would make her much more likely to spontaneously abort. Under this law, Edwards wouldn't be allowed even the use of birth control pills, and would have to rely on mechanical methods of contraception - or abstain.

Perhaps Colorado would knock itself out of any future Olympic considerations when it announces that not only will olympians be checked for doping, but women atheletes will be subjected to daily pregnancy tests. We don't just take an athelete's word that they are not using drugs - so it is logical that we wouldn't take their word about sexual activity either.

And why would it stop only at the Olympic level? You could easily make the case for mandatory pregnancy testing at the college level too.


I've written before about what could happen when we define a fertalized ovum as a person. It is not a pretty picture, and it is the first step to declaring women to be a second-class citizen. The outcome would be a world much like that of "Handmaid's Tale". Any woman who votes for this amendment is voting against her own freedom.

1 comment:

AmberKatt said...

Yeah, I live in Denver, and this amendment has me alternately bemused and scared. Under normal circumstances this idiocy would never pass, but Colorado is trying out some new voter identification computer database with this election, and stories are surfacing that it isn't functioning right and may be overloaded by the sheer projected volume of voters. (Wow, what a coinicidence that this is happening in THIS presidential election! And with all those surprising illegal voter purges in this state, too! Gosh darn it, who woulda thunk....)

Of course, I also thought that there was no way Amendment 2 would have been passed, last decade -- the one that banned equal rights protection for gay and lesbian citizens. But, it passed. (Fortunately it was eventually struck down by the SCOTUS.)

Colorado is a wierd state. Denver and Boulder are Democratic and progressive, but the rest of the state has been traditionally Republican -- mostly old-fashioned Traditional "mind your own business" Republican. It wasn't until Colorado Springs was taken over by the Fundagelicals in the late 80's or early 90's, whenever it was, that things got really weird here.