Colo. Gets Another Shot at Banning Abortion
Two years after a failed attempt to end abortion in Colorado, a state pro-life group has another shot at the ballot.
The secretary of state confirmed on Friday that Colorado-based Personhood USA submitted enough signatures to put an amendment that would protect the preborn to a statewide vote this fall.
"Let's go win this election for the babies," the group said Saturday.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Personhood Colorado had originally submitted more than the required 76,000 signatures in February but 20 percent of the signatures were deemed invalid.
The group had two weeks to submit more than 15,000 additional signatures. On March 18, they turned in more than 46,000 signatures – three times what was required.
"Over the past few days, the massive quantities of signatures that poured in just amazed us," said Gualberto Garcia-Jones, co-sponsor of the Personhood Ballot initiative, at that time.
Keith Mason, co-founder of Personhood USA, commented, "We knew we could do it, because when you are working on such a critical, life and death issue, volunteers are passionate."
Colorado was one of the first states to pursue a personhood amendment. Amendment 48, however, was defeated on the November 2008 ballot. Following that, Personhood USA was formed and began sponsoring similar measures in a number of states. The national organization is led by Christian ministers Keith Mason and Cal Zastrow.
Currently, the group is pushing personhood initiatives in some 40 states this year.
The goal of the personhood movement is to move churches and the culture to make the "dehumanization and murdering of pre-born children unthinkable" and to ultimately end abortion.
According to the Colorado arm, personhood is "a term used to describe the status of a human being vis-a-vis his or her individual human rights."
Language in the amendment calls for the protection of human life from the beginning of biological development.
Colorado's Personhood Amendment will be called Amendment 62.
