Colorado

Denver, Colo. — The Colorado Secretary of State’s Title Board approved Personhood Colorado’s new amendment language Wednesday night prompting Planned Parenthood to announce an appeal of the decision to the state Supreme Court. The board ruled 2-1, allowing the measure to advance to the statewide petition. Opponents have five days to file the challenge.

“We feared that having to come back again for a third attempt might have caused some fatigue in our volunteers, but Planned Parenthood’s attempt to block our efforts will help us by uniting and reminding pro-life advocates of why we are fighting and who we are fighting against,” said Personhood Colorado Director Gualberto Garcia Jones, J.D.

Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountain released a statement claiming that the amendment will violate the single-subject rule which limits citizen initiatives to one issue, a charge that has twice been rejected by the board and by the Court in 2008.

Similar to the previous challenges, attorneys for the abortion proponents will argue that the new proposal is “vague” despite the inclusion of a host of new clarifying details.

The 2012 Colorado Personhood Amendment reads: “In order to affirm basic human dignity, be it resolved that the right to life in this constitution applies equally to all innocent persons.”

Revisions in the new language will list the effects of enacting the measure protecting the right to life of every human being. This includes that only birth control devices that kill a person shall be affected, and only assisted reproduction methods that kill a person shall be affected. The amendment will not affect spontaneous miscarriages, and will not affect “medical treatment for life threatening physical conditions intended to preserve life.” The latter is defined as including but “not limited to treatment for cancer, ectopic and molar pregnancy, twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, and placenta previa.”

“Planned Parenthood’s challenge does not come as a surprise. They are losing the battle in the court of public opinion, and the improved language only ensures that this trend will continue,” continued Garcia Jones. “The abortion industry is really only left with one option. It is the same tactic they used to impose abortion on the entire nation— take the decision out of the hands of the people.”

The latest annual report from Planned Parenthood shows an increase of over $120 million in government funding. The group received $487 million dollars from the taxpayers in 2010.

“It’s not enough that they take our money to continue leading the nation in the number of abortions committed,” said Garcia Jones. “They also want to take away our right to petition.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/4/loss-steels-resolve-in-pe…

Anti-abortion activists ‘ready to press forward’

By Cheryl Wetzstein

The Washington Times

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Story Topics

Social Issues Jennifer Mason Les Riley Personhood Usa Personhood Mississippi

The Nov. 8 defeat of the “personhood” amendment in Mississippi is galvanizing supporters to have a do-over in the state and also push measures in Colorado, Virginia and at least eight other states, say leaders of the anti-abortion movement.

“I can tell you that we are going to press forward. … We’ve got plans to continue a massive grass-roots campaign,” as well as work with the legislature, said Les Riley, leader of Personhood Mississippi.

“We realize we are changing a culture, and we can’t expect to change the culture with one election. That’s why we are willing to do this as many times as it takes,” said Jennifer Mason, spokeswoman for Personhood USA, which supports coast-to-coast measures seeking to establish human rights at conception.

Petition drives for personhood measures are taking shape or are under way in California, Colorado, Florida, Montana, Nevada, Ohio and Oregon. In addition, lawmakers in Wisconsin and Virginia have introduced personhood legislation, while lawmakers in Georgia have announced plans to do so.

Those amendments will likely face fierce opposition from pro-choice groups — and some pro-life groups.

“Right-wing extremists intend to put so-called ‘personhood’ amendments on as many state ballots as they can,” the National Organization for Women said in a recent year-end fundraising appeal to supporters.

“Enactment of the so-called ‘Personhood’ Amendment to the Wisconsin state constitution is a threat to the protection of Wisconsin unborn children,” Wisconsin Right to Life said after a group of lawmakers introduced a personhood bill last month.

To many pro-life leaders, however, personhood is the battleground of the 21st century.

Emerging issues such as cloning, embryo experimentation and euthanasia necessitate ensuring the right to life for human beings, “womb to tomb,” say personhood supporters such as Georgia Right to Life President Daniel Becker.

“The pro-life movement must mature beyond the singular goal of ‘saving babies’ and engage our current ‘culture of death,’ ” Mr. Becker wrote in his book on personhood this year. “Personhood is the means.”

The stunning defeat of Mississippi’s Amendment 26 — 58 percent of voters rejected it although it was expected to pass handily in the strongly pro-life state — revealed numerous campaign weaknesses.

Personhood Mississippi polled about 10,000 people after the vote, Mr. Riley said. Surprisingly, the biggest reason people voted “no” on personhood was fear that it would prevent infertile couples from using in-vitro fertilization (IVF) to have a baby. Another big fear was that a personhood amendment would prevent pregnant women from getting lifesaving medical treatment.

Those and other fears were advanced by media campaigns, billboards and materials distributed by opponents of Amendment 26 — Mississippians for Healthy Families collected more than $1 million, mostly from Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its chapters, to defeat the amendment.

After the vote, though, a lot of people felt they were deceived, Mr. Riley said. Many have called to say they regret voting no and say, “I want to help you next time,”he said.

The Colorado amendment for 2012 reflects some lessons learned: It clarifies that “only birth control that kills a person” and “only in-vitro fertilization and assisted reproduction that kills a person” would be affected by the amendment and that it does not prevent medical treatment for life-threatening conditions such as cancer, ectopic pregnancies and placenta previa.

“We think that by including a little more information to prohibit our opposition from using these scare tactics will benefit us, while easing voters’ minds,” said Mrs. Mason, who is married to Personhood USA President Keith Mason.

The Colorado amendment’s new language “is an obvious effort to address some of the weaknesses in past proposals and be more clear about what the intent is,” said Clarke Forsythe, senior counsel at Americans United for Life, which, he said, takes a “state-by-state” approach on whether to support personhood amendments.

But such detail surely will open the Colorado personhood campaign to political debates on each of those points, he said. “It won’t be just an abortion issue; it will be an IVF issue. … You will have a campaign on every subsection of it.”

Mrs. Mason is undeterred, saying she thinks young Americans are ready to push forward with personhood.

“I feel like my [baby boomer] parents’ generation had time to change Roe v. Wade and fight against it, and nothing happened,” she said. “Believe me, we have the most volunteers of any pro-life group in the country. And most of these volunteers are young people who want to see a change.”

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19380916?source=rss

A Denver-based anti-abortion group that sponsored an unsuccessful personhood amendment in Mississippi — declaring fertilization the starting point of life — is mobilizing again to push a fortified measure in Colorado, Oregon and Montana.

The group will hold a news conference today on the west steps of the state Capitol to unveil the renewed effort. Personhood amendments have failed twice in Colorado, but organizers think the third time will be different.

They’ll announce official sponsors and unveil exact language for submission to the secretary of state.

They would need about 79,000 valid petition signatures to win a spot on Colorado’s 2012 ballot.

Organizers said Saturday they are banking on broad grassroots support, with volunteers circulating petitions at grocery stores, and a new game plan.

The new version of the measure “will protect every child, no matter their size, level of development, gender, age or race,” said Jennifer Mason, spokeswoman for Personhood USA.

New language “will explain again that every human being is a person from their earliest moments,” Mason said. “And it will include some extra information that hopefully will prohibit lies of our opponents. . . . It will be a departure from what we’ve done before.”

Personhood USA pushed Colorado’s Amendment 62 in 2010 seeking constitutional rights for individuals “at the beginning of biological development.”

Colorado voters rejected it by a 3-to-1 margin — just as they rejected a nearly identical measure in 2008.

This year, Personhood USA turned to the Bible Belt, pushing a measure in Mississippi, but 55 percent of voters rejected it.

If voters were to pass a measure saying life begins at fertilization, legal challenges would be likely because such a measure would conflict with the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling that established a legal right to abortion.

In Colorado, a “No on 62” campaign led by Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains and abortion-rights groups prevailed after raising more than $570,000 — nearly 10 times the cash that abortion foes received.

Abortion-rights advocates in Colorado harnessed lawyers, medical experts and women who had suffered rape and miscarriage. They used public forums to cast the measure as misguided, arguing that, beyond ending abortion, declaring fertilization as the starting point for life would lead to a prohibition of emergency contraception in rape cases and limit treatment for miscarriages, tubal pregnancies and infertility.

Now, anti-abortion groups in Colorado, Oregon and Montana will try to sway voters again, Mason said.

Bruce Finley: 303-954-1700 or [email protected]

http://www.coloradopols.com/diary/16738/on-radio-co-right-to-life-leader…
On Kevin Swanson’s “Generations Radio” show, broadcast Nov. 11 from his basement in eastern Colorado, Colorado Right to Life Vice President Leslie Hanks vowed to press ahead next year with a third try at passing a Personhood Amendment in Colorado.

Hanks sounded mildly disappointed with Mississippi’s rejection Tues. of a Personhood measure by a 58-to-42-percent margin, but she told Swanson that the Personhood movement is “moving in the right direction,” gaining 27% in CO in 2008, 30% 2010, and 42% in Mississippi this week.
Jason Salzman :: CO Right to Life Leader Vows 2012 Personhood Effort, Despite MS Loss

Hanks invited Swanson’s listeners to a “March for Life” Jan. 21 at noon on the west steps of the CO Capitol, where the third attempt to pass a Personhood Amendment in Colorado will be officially launched and petitions for gathering signatures to put the measure on the ballot will be available. Mike Adams of conservative Townhall.com and others will speak, Hanks to Swanson, at the “Round Three Personhood Colorado” event.

She told Swanson that Personhood activists in Florida are gathering signitures now, as are supporters in Ohio and Montana. Coloradoans were the first in the country to vote on a Personhood amendment in 2008.

“We won’t quit until justice has been served for all those innocent children who have been killed,” Hanks told Swanson.

“This is the kind of thing that bothers the other side,” Swanson concluded at the end of his broadcast. “They realize, we’re not giving up. And that really irritates them. And I’ll tell ya, to be honest, I kind of enjoy that.”

Swanson, who’s Nov. 11 broadcast was titled “Making Progress on Personhood,” is a pastor, who tells his listeners that his radio show “is trying to put some things back together during the decline of western civilization, the breakdown of faith, family, and freedom, the breakdown of morality, and of course the massive, massive increase in the state, that is statism, tyranny, government tyranny.”