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TechnoratiAmendment 48 Goes Too Far
My very first job after graduating from Harvard Law School was as a part-time lawyer for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains in Denver. I was working on cases related to expanding access to birth control to all couples regardless of their marital status. At the time the birth control pill was recently approved as safe, but it was not yet legal in all states for all women. The Supreme Court in 1965 established basic privacy rights to birth control, but only for women who could produce a marriage license.
Fast forward to 2008, 40 years later. In my worst nightmare, it never crossed my mind that voters in Colorado would be considering a constitutional amendment that could outlaw birth control pills. Emergency contraceptives could also be illegal under Proposition 48, a form of birth control that if taken up to 72 hours after intercourse can prevent an unwanted pregnancy, especially used by rape and incest victims.
If you need more reasons to Vote No on 48, chances are you or your own family will be affected if this crazy proposal passes. Like thousands of living women in Colorado in the 1970's, I struggled with difficult pregnancies. I lost twins during my second pregnancy and almost died during childbirth. It was a painful time for my family, as it is for all families. I can only imagine how devastating it would have been if government officials had shown up on my doorstep, asking questions about what had happened, was it really a miscarriage? Yet, couples could face that kind of unthinkable government investigation if Colorado voters allow Amendment 48 to pass.
If you don't believe it could happen, just take a look at the plain language of the Amendment. It would amend the Colorado constitution to grant, for the first time, inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of law to fertilized eggs. Even the proponents of the Amendment admit they don't know all the possible ramifications.
Would couples struggling to get pregnant be allowed to use in vitro fertilization, which depends on fertilizing more eggs than a woman can carry to term? Would common birth control methods, such as the Pill, IUDs, the Patch, and the Ring, be outlawed because they operate by preventing fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus?
Could child welfare agencies be called to investigate abuse of a fertilized egg? Would a fertilized egg have standing to sue a woman for getting chemotherapy for cancer because it might be harmed? Amendment 48 would open more than 20,000 statutes and regulations to re-interpretation by the courts and lawyers. Almost every area of the law would be affected, including criminal law, family law, trusts and estates, elder law, tort law, juvenile law, health law, and business law.
In this presidential election year, Coloradans will decide one of the most competitive senate races in the country, several strongly contested congressional races, and as many as a dozen statewide ballot initiatives. There are a large number of questions on the ballot this fall, and many of the issues are complicated. But it doesn't take a constitutional scholar, a medical ethicist or a genius to see that Amendment 48 is ridiculous. Coloradans have rejected these extreme positions before and must do so again.
Amendment 48 is not a homegrown initiative. National groups such as The American Life League, Lifeguard, and the Thomas More Law Center are carrying out a multi-state strategy with the ultimate goal of overturning Roe v. Wade. In addition to Colorado, they tried to get similar amendments on the ballot in Georgia, Montana, and Oregon, but failed. These outside groups are hoping, in Colorado, that the Amendment will sneak through the clutter of a crowed ballot. They are counting on you to be distracted and not to focus on the full implications of Amendment 48.
Well, they are forgetting that Coloradans are independent thinkers. Coloradans believe that they and their neighbors should have the ability to plan when they want to start a family, decide when they are ready to become parents, and make other important life decisions. By establishing constitutional rights from the moment of fertilization, Amendment 48 would eliminate a woman's right to make personal, private decisions about her own health care, in consultation with her doctor and her family.
Years ago, when I was asked how I could be both a mother and a Congresswoman, I replied, "I have a brain and a uterus and I use both." On November 4, I urge Coloradans to use their brains and protect women's uteruses. Vote no on Amendment 48.
22 Comments so far
Show AllOutlaw contraception? Gee...looks like we need all the contraception we can have in my opinion.
Fertilized eggs have a voice? Wow! I thought I have heard it all in my day but that is a first. Since fertilized eggs do not technically have the ability of communication (other than in the womb or a test tube but...even assuming this possibility ummmmm...that is too far, as communication is more limited as a fetus than after gestation), who will be the "lawyer" or the spokesperson of the fetus? The State, rather than the mother-father/egg-bearer-sperm donor? The...D.A., rather than the mother-father/egg-bearer-sperm-donor? Scary stuff...
I hope that the majority of people who live in Colorado have some degree of rationality, awareness and intellect, to vote no. It just sounds...ridiculous! Ok? This measure seems extreme to me.
How is it possible that we are actually discussing this?
What an incredibly backward place this country is nowadays.
Thanks to 'actually' for posting the link to the Denver Post article.
The devout mind is saturated with stories that tell of a vastly superior opponent being vanquished by a weak or unskilled person who trusts only in God. The stories are meant to inspire hope in those facing insurmountable odds, but they're twisted in political religiosity into indifference to experience, hatred of intellect and factuality, and blank contempt for human life & the difficulty of choice.
Thus a 13-year-old, in the midst of the normal fevers of the age, imagines herself to have a direct mission from God, and will simply reject any experience, any relationship, any reasoning that will ever shift her understanding. She will remain a resolutely unreflective 13-year-old at the core.
This is the fundamental reason that the rightwing does not CARE at all whether a person's thinking squares with the world, or whether the have any qualifications or competence at all. It doesn't matter whether it's a flim-flam man or woman tricked out in a power outfit claiming to be expert in investments or a self-deceived emptyhead who knows nothin' 'bout birthin' no babies, or Moosolini herself, it's all one.
Well, it worked pretty well for Joan of Arc.
I live in Colorado (Fort Collins, to be exact), and I was shocked when I first heard about this amendment on the ballot. I didn't think the extreme right in this state would be that bold. I WILL be voting against it, and I am heartened to hear it is trailing in the polls.
I have also been rather heartened to see the grass-roots objection to it by the women in this state. I am a certified massage therapist, and I currently work in a salon/spa . . . with all females, might I add. All my hairdresser and esthetician coworkers are screaming about this one, and we have anti-amendment 48 posters up in our break room, the one political statement that has been allowed.
By the way, does anyone live in Eastern CO? I hear that part of the state is as "conservative" as Kansas, correct?
I live in Fort Collins, which is north central CO. But yes, you are correct, the eastern part of the state is pretty conservative . . . though not as bad as Colorado Springs. Egads, that place scares me sometimes.
I don't think Patricia Schroeder does her cause any favours by suddenly using the word "uterus" in a sentence, without warning.
Land o'Goshen! Did YOU have to REPEAT the offense?
You could've just said "the u-word", the preferred euphemism in our infantile culture.
lf life begins at conception, why isn't a fetus a dependent ( for tax purposes ) until after birth?
You should hear the pathetic ads that they are running for this amendment. Full of the usual right wing flaming points, like "radical agenda" and "out of state opponents", and my personal favorite "what we know in our hearts".
These people aren't willing to help anyone who would be forced to have an unwanted child, they just want to force them to have the unwanted children. Rape, incest and broken marriages don't mean anything to these people at all. This is nothing but a closed minded and cynical attempt to keep people from having control over their OWN bodies, and to punish those who make mistakes or whose birth control fails.
Colorado has had chances to prove it's sanity before, and has failed, like that God Awful amendment 2 anti gay crap. If we aren't smart enough to defeat this soundly, then all hell will break loose. Our wages are already lower than large parts of the country, and if this passes, we will further third world ourselves. Unemployment has doubled here since W stole office, what more do we have to do to make things even worse?
Oh, I know, we can vote for the union busting amendment 47, the anti free speech 49 and 54. Yeah, that'll help A LOT!
This Proposition 48 can't possibly pass can it? The Coloradans I know aren't that intolerant.
Denver Post, Oct 6 ... http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_10646538
"Of those surveyed, 48 percent opposed Amendment 48, 30 percent support it and 22 percent were undecided."
So, ok I understand why Ms. Schroeder opposes this. I do too. But, if this thing is trailing by 18 points in the polls, why are the Democrats and the Demo-echo-chamber like Common Democrats running hysterical scare pieces about this?
We've seen this tactic before by the Republicans. They use the politics of hate and fear around ballot issues like this raise the voter turnout for their candidates. Thus, we can now get an idea of the real purpose behind this article.
Me, I don't like the politics of fear. I think its a lousy way to choose leaders for a country. It leads to bad policy and bad government. And, my growing disgust for the Democratic Party continues to grow when I see them using tactics like this. It just shows more of how they are exactly like the Republicans in that they'll do any nasty thing that's really destructive to our country and our society in order to win an election for their corrupt candidates.
Yeah, vote against this thing. But then, once you are in the voting booth, vote for the Green Party to show that you want a different politics in this country from the same old politics of fear that we now get from both of the corporate parties.
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"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
Up next: gametes have protection too. Males: it will be illegal to masturbate because of all the lives you will wash down the drain. Women: you will remain perpetually pregnant from the very moment the first ovum leaves your ovaries. This is getting absolutely ridiculous. Rights for single cells will definitely be next if things like this get traction in the country. I hope, HOPE, that people in Colorado are more capable of critical thought than the rest of the, what seems to be, apathetic public in the rest of the country. As for Proposition 8 in California... Is that the anti-marriage one? *heads to google*
This law- literally- is the result of a 20-year-old woman who claims that God directly told her that making abortion illegal was her life's calling.
The right-wing is so anti-science that they don't even realize: a woman is not pregnant when one of her eggs becomes fertilized. She's pregnant when a fertilized egg implants in the uterine lining. Fertilized eggs end up in tampons all the time.
So, for example, the birth control method "IUD" (Intrauterine Devices) works by preventing eggs from implanting in the uterine lining. RU-486 works in a similar way: it's a progesterone antagonist that causes shedding of the uterine lining.
So, literally, according to this law, both of those birth control methods are homicide.
Thanks for blabbing... now they're already at work on Amendment 49, which requires all tampons to be inspected by medical laboratories prior to disposal.
What. Now this is just getting ridiculous. First, we have proposition 8 in California, now this??
Are people actually expected to take this crap seriously? I sure as hell don't. WHAT A JOKE.
Sioux Rose
This proposition exposes the naked not so ulterior motives of the extreme right: to control women's destinies through their capacity to elect reproductive freedom. While some may have had some high ground in the anti-abortion debate, the sickness of authoritarian mindsets BENT on controlling other peoples' sexuality is evident. These are people more twisted than pretzels that so many make it their mission to suppress women and demonize sexuality, while they could CARE LESS about poverty, the excruciating pain of children born into love-less homes, and the actual MAIMING and MURDERING of children that always results from war, particulary the new U.S species of "Elected" wars for hire. I wonder if Ms. Palin's daughter's pregnancy resulted from rape if she'd be quite so cavalier?
"a constitutional amendment that could outlaw birth control pills. Emergency contraceptives could also be illegal under Proposition 48, a form of birth control that if taken up to 72 hours after intercourse can prevent an unwanted pregnancy, especially used by rape and incest victims."
Only the most idiotic extremist could even propose something this offensive and intrusive. Ban birth control? About the only time I think that might have been a good idea was when the people that put Proposition 48 up were conceived. Geeezzzzzeeeeee.
Technically, the amendment doesn't propose any of that. This piece is a scare piece that is hysterically screaming about the worst possible outcomes of this.
The real purpose is revealed in the paragraph where she starts talking about close Senate and House races. This is the same nasty tactic we've seen in the past from the Republicans. Hysterical scare pieces about a ballot issue designed to try to drive up turnout to elect the corrupt candidates of the party.
This is the politics of fear from the Democrats.
Yeah, I'll vote against it. No problem there. And its trailing by 18 points in the polls, so don't get too alarmed. But, once I'm in the voting booth voting no for this, you can be sure I won't vote for a single Democrat on the ballot. I'm tired of their disgusting party. And seeing them pull the old Republican tactic of campaiging on fear and hysteria just reinforces that.
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"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
Actually, I had heard some time ago that the anti-women lobby's newest strategy was to outlaw contraception, specifically a court decision from the 70s allowing contraception between married couples. This look like the first concrete step towards that. And yes, also designed to get more Republicans into the polls.
At least in CO, there's still room for improvement. Too bad only state legislators in my state get to vote on that. Frankly, there is no need to legislate morality if they actually believed in GOD as they claim. The phrase "IN GOD WE TRUST" has become a bullshit phrase as a result of trying to set up costly taxpayer funded ballot drives on social issues such as gays and abortion. Here's what I shoot at to social fundies I put up with all the time. If you don't like same sex marriage, then don't have one. If you don't want an abortion don't have one. And if you're really pro-life, stop being dishonest about it. Being "pro-life" before birth and then pro-death from birth onwards is NOT pro-life.