The Problems With Anti-Choice Laws Begin at Conception

Today marks the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the historic Supreme Court case that legalized abortion in the United States. It is a legal cornerstone upon which the right to choose and women’s reproductive rights rest. One of today’s challenges to Roe is Colorado’s “Definition of Person” ballot initiative, approved by the Colorado Supreme Court in a 7-0 decision last November. The initiative aims to amend the state’s constitution to define a person as a fertilized egg. If adopted in this November’s election, the amendment would grant the state constitutional protections of inalienable rights, justice, and due process to microscopic fertilized eggs.

This isn’t the first ballot initiative that has sought to chip away at Roe. In 2006, South Dakota attempted to pass an outright ban on abortion. The measure didn’t pass, in part because the measure as written didn’t include exceptions for rape or incest. An eerily similar ban was proposed in Georgia early last year. Louisiana enacted a law giving rights to embryos back in 1986. Today there are many state-level initiatives that seek to give rights to human embryos. The measure that could appear on the ballot in Colorado this November is more evidence that the pro-life movement has begun highly disciplined grassroots movements in the states to implement constitutional amendments. Such amendments would have to be taken all the way to the Supreme Court in hopes of overturning Roe. The Colorado for Equal Rights campaign, or (CER), and its founder, 20 year-old Kristine Burton, are spearheading the “Definition of Person” initiative.

Burton is the oldest of three home-schooled children and graduated high school at the age of 15. At 17, she enrolled in Oak Brook College of Law & Government Policy, a California-based correspondence law school that is overtly religious. The school's Web site says that “Oak Brook emphasizes Biblical standards of moral character and encourages its students to seek the Lord Jesus Christ for wisdom and understanding in their studies. Through the personal discipline of studying and applying Scripture, students maintain the awareness that God is the ultimate moral authority to Whom we are accountable.”

Between now and May 13, CER must gather 76,000 signatures—less than two percent of Colorado’s total population—to add its initiative to the November ballot. Rich Coolidge, spokesperson for the Colorado Secretary of State, says proponents are encouraged to collect closer to 100,000 signatures because the state will verify that the signatures are registered voters by randomly checking 4,000 or 5 percent of the total number of signatures, whichever is greater. If the signatures are deemed valid, the initiative will be added to the ballot in November. Then, all CER would need is a simple majority to make it law.

The CER Web site proclaims it “was founded with the goal of protecting human life.” A downloadable fact sheet (PDF) the organization distributes states the campaign aims “to transform our nation from a culture of death into a culture of life.” Of the two pictures featured, one is of several pre-school aged children and the other is of a fully developed fetus. All are common pro-life rhetoric and images, yet the site never directly says the goal of the amendment is to open the door to outlawing abortion. In practice, of course, that’s exactly what the amendment would do.

The text of the initiative itself doesn’t even mention the word abortion, and active supporters are careful to side step the abortion question. Audrey of the Oak Creek Grade General Store in Colorado, one of CER’s 10 petition distribution points, claims it had not occurred to her that this could lead to a ban on abortion.