Is a Fertilized Egg a Person? Colorado Voters Might Decide via Ballot Measure

While this isn’t an OC story, it is in the sense that there’s been a raging debate on abortion in this county.

HT: Washington Post and Crooks & Liars:

Court Clears Way for Egg Rights Showdown

By P. SOLOMON BANDA
The Associated Press
Tuesday, November 13, 2007; 9:19 PM 

DENVER — The Colorado Supreme Court cleared the way Tuesday for an anti-abortion group to collect signatures for a ballot measure that would define a fertilized egg as a person.

The court approved the language of the proposal, rejecting a challenge from abortion-rights supporters who argued it was misleading and dealt with more than one subject in violation of the state constitution. 

If approved by voters, the measure would give fertilized eggs the state constitutional protections of inalienable rights, justice and due process. (but of course, would deny them marriage to someone of the same sex-Dan)

“Proponents of this initiative have publicly stated that the goal is to make all abortion illegal _ but nothing in the language of the initiative or its title even mentions abortion,” Kathryn Wittneben of NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado said in a statement. “If that’s not misleading, I don’t know what is.” 

Wittneben and others said the measure would have would hamper in-vitro fertilization and stem cell research and would effectively ban birth control.

Proponents of the measure disagree. “It doesn’t outlaw abortion, it doesn’t regulate birth control,” said Kristi Burton, 20, of Colorado for Equal Rights. “It’s just a constitutional principle. We’re laying a foundation that every life deserves protection.

Burton said the initiative would simply define a human. “It’s very clearly a single subject,” Burton said. “If it’s a human being, it’s a person, and hey, they deserve equal rights under our law.”

Colorado for Equal Rights must collect 76,000 signatures to get the measure on the ballot. Supporters have six months to gather the necessary signatures _ a deadline that began with the collection of the first signatures Tuesday, said Rich Coolidge, a spokesman for the secretary of state. 

Anti-abortion activists said similar voter-led initiatives or legislative efforts are under way in five other states, including Montana, Georgia, Oregon, Michigan and South Carolina.

So what does this mean? Are fertilized eggs dependents and are they now a tax deduction?  What about miscarriages?  Do we go to funerals afterwards for a fetus that didn’t take? Please weigh in with your thoughts.

4 Comments

  1. Someone might want to talk to all those Christians who have IVF where only 1 in 4 eggs actually have a chance to implant. If they adopted, they’d have a 100% chance of saving a life.

  2. Here is how our favorite Assemblyman would respond:

    Dan, you have no clue about egg ethos. Since you are not a fertilized egg, you have no idea the persecution they go through by left wing wackos. I was once a fertilized egg, you were not, since the John Birch society proved that left wingers did not come from fertilized eggs. Therefore you have no right to speak about fertilized egg ethos.

    All the Best

    Chuck DeVore

  3. The proponents of the initiative in Colorado are not pro-life; they are pro-birth. Like most pro-birthers, they could care less what happens to a child after he or she is born.

  4. Insanity! Do these ideologues realize that based on the wording of the proposed ref. since 40-80% on fertilized eggs a.k.a. persons are passed out of the body with a women’s flow? Do they realize that only 25% of pregnancies a.k.a. “personhoods” can be medically recognized by sonar? Do they realize the boon for funeral directors as they wll have to handle ALL menstrual wastes due to the high probabilty that any sexually women is flushing “a person” down the toliet any time she has a period? Talk about violating privacy and simple human dignity! Colorado voters are insulting and offensive to all women. We might as well be enacting Sharia laws in the U.S. Having a miscarriage is physically and emotionally painful for women already. This just is so disgusting regardless of how you feel about termination of pregnancy.

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