From Diana Hsieh:
Reproductive rights in Colorado are under attack by the religious right. Amendment 48 — the ballot measure that would define a fertilized egg as a person with full legal rights in the Colorado constitution — threatens not just legal abortion but also the birth control pill and in vitro fertilization.
The Coalition for Secular Government just published an issue paper on the threat posed by Amendment 48 by Ari Armstrong and myself (Diana Hsieh) entitled “Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters That a Fertilized Egg Is Not a Person.” It’s available for download at:
http://www.SecularGovernment.us/docs/a48.pdf
It shows that Amendment 48 is deeply hostile to human life:
* Given existing criminal statues, Amendment 48 would subject women and their doctors to life in prison or the death penalty for abortions, even in cases of rape, incest, and fetal deformity.
* It would prevent doctors from properly treating non-viable ectopic pregnancy until the woman’s life and health was in serious danger, thereby causing needless deaths.
* It would force thousands of women each year to bear unwanted children, whatever the cost to their own lives and happiness.
* It would ban popular and effective forms of birth control, including the birth-control pill, thereby increasing unwanted pregnancies.
* It would outlaw the fertility treatments responsible for the birth of hundreds of Colorado babies to eager parents each year.
Amendment 48 would do all that based solely on the faith-based fiction that a fertilized egg is the moral equal of a born infant. Our paper shows that the biological facts support the opposite conclusion: that only the pregnant woman, and then the born infant, are persons with rights. It shows that Amendment 48 is deeply hostile to the requirements of a rational, responsible, and moral life.