We've been really busy, so I apologize for not updating you on Personhood around the country.
Though we made a really good go at it in legislatures, none of the legislative efforts at Personhood made it past the second house in the states where it was tried.
However, Mississippi's Personhood ballot measure is well underway, and so is Oregon's. Visit PersonhoodUSA for more information on those efforts, and about Montana's ballot initiative they launched this week too!
Here is video from the press conference in Colorado yesterday, where Colorado Right to Life and Personhood USA launched a new petition gathering initiative to build on the momentum from 2008's Amendment 48 Personhood measure.
Showing posts with label Amendment 48. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amendment 48. Show all posts
Friday, July 3, 2009
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Personhood on the March Nationwide!
In the past two weeks, the North Dakota House passed HB 1572 by a 51-41 vote. This Personhood bill will establish any unborn child of the human genome to be a person under N. Dakota law. HB 1572 will go to the Senate, where passage seems likely, perhaps as early as this week, and Gov. John Hoeven has reportedly said that he will sign it!
Furthermore, the Montana Senate has passed two bills, SB 46, which declares in the Montana Constitution that the state has a compelling interest in protecting unborn children, and so they are not meant by the legislature to be covered by the state's "privacy" clause (a common defense for abortion), and SB 406, also written by State Senate President Dan McGee, which declares "All persons are born free and have certain inalienable rights," and later says, "Person means a human being at all stages of human development of life, including the state of fertilization or conception, regardless of age, health, level of functioning, or condition of dependency." SB 406 passed 26-24 on the 26th. The Montana House is Democrat-controlled, and so is not seen as a hospitable environment for this legislation, but it seems that if the House were to pass it, it would automatically become an amendment to the state Constitution.
Please pray that at least 74 Montana House members will support this legislation when it comes to them!
Please also pray for God's support for Personhood USA, an organization founded by friends of Colorado Right to Life (Cal Zastrow and Keith Mason), which is busy organizing Personhood legislation and new Personhood ballot initiatives in several states. By the end of the summer, we may see one form or another of Personhood legislation under consideration in as many as 15 states!
Colorado Right to Life is working on getting Personhood legislation in Colorado this year or next, and we intend to continue to educate the public through all possible means -- Internet, public demonstrations, mailings, radio, TV, etc. Of course, this is a follow-on effort to Colorado Right to Life's 2008 support for Amendment 48, the Colorado Personhood Initiative, which garnered the support of almost 600,000 Colorado voters in November!
If you would like to help Colorado Right to Life perform this important work, please visit http://www.coloradorighttolife.org/donate and make a donation!
Keep in mind that other pro-life groups across the country have different, and less far-reaching strategies for protecting children. Colorado Right to Life (and its national organization, American Right to Life) remains one of the central organizers of Personhood efforts nationwide, and much of the work in favor of Personhood that has been occurring is an outgrowth of the work of Colorado Right to Life's and American Right to Life's Nov 2007 Personhood Summit, which brought together the nation's leading supporters of Personhood into a concerted campaign.
Furthermore, the Montana Senate has passed two bills, SB 46, which declares in the Montana Constitution that the state has a compelling interest in protecting unborn children, and so they are not meant by the legislature to be covered by the state's "privacy" clause (a common defense for abortion), and SB 406, also written by State Senate President Dan McGee, which declares "All persons are born free and have certain inalienable rights," and later says, "Person means a human being at all stages of human development of life, including the state of fertilization or conception, regardless of age, health, level of functioning, or condition of dependency." SB 406 passed 26-24 on the 26th. The Montana House is Democrat-controlled, and so is not seen as a hospitable environment for this legislation, but it seems that if the House were to pass it, it would automatically become an amendment to the state Constitution.
Please pray that at least 74 Montana House members will support this legislation when it comes to them!
Please also pray for God's support for Personhood USA, an organization founded by friends of Colorado Right to Life (Cal Zastrow and Keith Mason), which is busy organizing Personhood legislation and new Personhood ballot initiatives in several states. By the end of the summer, we may see one form or another of Personhood legislation under consideration in as many as 15 states!
Colorado Right to Life is working on getting Personhood legislation in Colorado this year or next, and we intend to continue to educate the public through all possible means -- Internet, public demonstrations, mailings, radio, TV, etc. Of course, this is a follow-on effort to Colorado Right to Life's 2008 support for Amendment 48, the Colorado Personhood Initiative, which garnered the support of almost 600,000 Colorado voters in November!
If you would like to help Colorado Right to Life perform this important work, please visit http://www.coloradorighttolife.org/donate and make a donation!
Keep in mind that other pro-life groups across the country have different, and less far-reaching strategies for protecting children. Colorado Right to Life (and its national organization, American Right to Life) remains one of the central organizers of Personhood efforts nationwide, and much of the work in favor of Personhood that has been occurring is an outgrowth of the work of Colorado Right to Life's and American Right to Life's Nov 2007 Personhood Summit, which brought together the nation's leading supporters of Personhood into a concerted campaign.
Friday, January 23, 2009
CRTL Debates on CSPAN!
CRTL Board Member and Pastor Bob Enyart spoke in favor of Colorado’s Personhood Amendement on CSPAN in October. He debated Crystal Clinkenbeard, leader of the "No on 48" campaign, in a 37-minute exchange broadcast nationwide.
Taking the initiative, Enyart spoke for most of the 45-minute program, with Clinkenbeard seemingly having few sound bites that would help her side. Enyart’s points were cogent, and hard-hitting. "Half the time the pregnant woman has a boy inside of her," he said, "so it’s not the woman’s body. It’s a separate body."
Clinkenbeard posed several lies and obfuscations, and raised extreme cases which would never come into play.
One of the charges Planned Parenthood made was that giving rights to "fertilized eggs" would send women to jail for miscarriages. Enyart responded, "The claim that women and doctors are going to be going to jail because of medical treatment, that is shown to be obfuscation, because before Roe v. Wade we had ectopic pregnancies in America – a baby developing in the fallopian tube. We did not have our courts filled with doctors and women going to court and to jail because of having to save the life of a mother in an ectopic pregnancy."
Clinkenbeard explained how concerned she and the pro-abortion forces are that what started in Colorado will spread to other states.
Host Pedro Echevarria asked, "If this amendment passes, could that ultimately go up the line to what it could do for Roe versus Wade?"
She answered, "Absolutely."
A pro-life caller said she was offended that her tax dollars were being used to support abortion. Clinkenbeard responded, "It’s absolutely not true, it doesn’t happen." And went on to say that under the Hyde Amendment, such taxpayer funding is illegal, so... of course it doesn’t happen!
Enyart wouldn’t let that drop, so he explained about the fungibility (transferability) of funds, and how adding funding for any reason to Planned Parenthood naturally supports their abortion services. "Regarding tax funded abortions, Planned Parenthood receives hundreds of millions of dollars, of federal tax money."
One caller challenged Enyart’s right to even speak on the issue, since he was a man. In his response, Enyart pointed out that Roe v. Wade and all the pro-abortion laws in the ‘60s and ‘70s were decided not by women, but by men. "Men are more pro-choice than women… they’ll use a woman sexually, impregnate her, and not want to have to love her or care for her or their child, and so men are more pro-choice than women, and that’s historic, because a woman carries the baby and knows it is a child."
During the program, Enyart compared abortion to slavery. "Back when we were trying to stop slavery — abolition — people said, ‘Well I’m against slavery, but think of all the difficulty this would cause for our economy, for our political system, if we acknowledge blacks as people, think of all the difficulties to our societal structure. Those arguments are irrelevant. What matters is that a child should be honored by the adults in society, should be loved and protected." Then he pointed to Snowflakes.org, which helps adopt out frozen embryos. Their site also shows pictures of beautiful babies who were adopted as frozen embryos and who are being raised as loved children today.
"Their rights started not in the hospital," he said, "Their rights started when they were created, at that moment of fertilization. And if we deny that, that fundamental truth of when life begins… they avoid the question of when does life begin. They can’t answer that question. All of science acknowledges that the human being comes into existence when the sperm fertilizes the egg."
Amendment 48, of course — the subject of the debate — would protect children from the moment of fertilization. "Our opponents say, ‘well, we don’t know when the moment of fertilization is.’ But that egg knows, because as soon as one sperm fertilizes that egg, a dramatic change happens in the cell wall, and all the other suitors, they’re rebuffed. It’s too late. There’s now a new precious little boy, or a little girl, right there. And we need to love and protect all children beginning right at that first moment of life."
Responding to Clinkenbeard’s charge that Personhood would even force a raped child to give birth, Enyart said, "Abortion for incest is cruel. What it does is it encourages the would-be criminal to rape his young relative, and he knows that if he impregnates her, he can bring her to Planned Parenthood, and nationwide, systematically, Planned Parenthood, Crystal’s former employer, does not they refuse to comply with mandatory reporting for suspected sexual abuse of minors. Just as in California, in August, a case noted by the California Supreme Court, a man will commit incest, impregnate his young relative, bring her to an abortion clinic, they will ask no questions, he’ll take her home and continue to abuse her. So the abortion clinic often sends the victim home with her rapist to be continually sexually molested."
Clinkenbeard brought up ectopic pregnancy and health issues, claiming 48 would prevent action, to which Enyart responded, "You don’t kill the mother to save the baby, and you don’t kill the baby to save the mother. You try to love and protect both. And when the baby dies, as is commonly the case, that’s a tragedy, but you don’t stop half-way, like in a partial-birth abortion, stop and kill the baby. If the mother’s life is at risk, you deliver the baby. You do a C-section. You remove the baby. You don’t deliver him half-way breach, stop, kill the baby, and then continue. That is not loving and protecting the mother. That’s the intention to kill the baby. And that’s what’s wrong. That’s why we have to love and protect all children."
Finally, refuting Clinkenbeard’s claim that Planned Parenthood is concerned for the well being of women, Enyart said, "Abortion is not only cruel to children, it’s cruel to the moms. And we owe it to the next generation of young women in the state of Colorado and our country to protect them from the cruelty of convenience and pressure to kill their little baby, their boy or girl, and so this amendment is a historic opportunity for the State of Colorado to acknowledge the God-given Right to Life comes, like the last caller said, at that moment of creation. Our rights don’t come from the hospital, they don’t come from the delivery doctor, the OBYGN. Our rights come from our Creator. And Planned Parenthood and Crystal, they cannot say when life begins, even though it is so obvious in any biology textbook, fetology, that life begins at that moment. All you have to do is refrain from killing it to find out what a beautiful and precious little boy or girl is right there in that embryo."
The full program is available online:
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/crystal-clinkenbeard-and-bob-enyart/1305153968/
Taking the initiative, Enyart spoke for most of the 45-minute program, with Clinkenbeard seemingly having few sound bites that would help her side. Enyart’s points were cogent, and hard-hitting. "Half the time the pregnant woman has a boy inside of her," he said, "so it’s not the woman’s body. It’s a separate body."
Clinkenbeard posed several lies and obfuscations, and raised extreme cases which would never come into play.
One of the charges Planned Parenthood made was that giving rights to "fertilized eggs" would send women to jail for miscarriages. Enyart responded, "The claim that women and doctors are going to be going to jail because of medical treatment, that is shown to be obfuscation, because before Roe v. Wade we had ectopic pregnancies in America – a baby developing in the fallopian tube. We did not have our courts filled with doctors and women going to court and to jail because of having to save the life of a mother in an ectopic pregnancy."
Clinkenbeard explained how concerned she and the pro-abortion forces are that what started in Colorado will spread to other states.
Host Pedro Echevarria asked, "If this amendment passes, could that ultimately go up the line to what it could do for Roe versus Wade?"
She answered, "Absolutely."
A pro-life caller said she was offended that her tax dollars were being used to support abortion. Clinkenbeard responded, "It’s absolutely not true, it doesn’t happen." And went on to say that under the Hyde Amendment, such taxpayer funding is illegal, so... of course it doesn’t happen!
Enyart wouldn’t let that drop, so he explained about the fungibility (transferability) of funds, and how adding funding for any reason to Planned Parenthood naturally supports their abortion services. "Regarding tax funded abortions, Planned Parenthood receives hundreds of millions of dollars, of federal tax money."
One caller challenged Enyart’s right to even speak on the issue, since he was a man. In his response, Enyart pointed out that Roe v. Wade and all the pro-abortion laws in the ‘60s and ‘70s were decided not by women, but by men. "Men are more pro-choice than women… they’ll use a woman sexually, impregnate her, and not want to have to love her or care for her or their child, and so men are more pro-choice than women, and that’s historic, because a woman carries the baby and knows it is a child."
During the program, Enyart compared abortion to slavery. "Back when we were trying to stop slavery — abolition — people said, ‘Well I’m against slavery, but think of all the difficulty this would cause for our economy, for our political system, if we acknowledge blacks as people, think of all the difficulties to our societal structure. Those arguments are irrelevant. What matters is that a child should be honored by the adults in society, should be loved and protected." Then he pointed to Snowflakes.org, which helps adopt out frozen embryos. Their site also shows pictures of beautiful babies who were adopted as frozen embryos and who are being raised as loved children today.
"Their rights started not in the hospital," he said, "Their rights started when they were created, at that moment of fertilization. And if we deny that, that fundamental truth of when life begins… they avoid the question of when does life begin. They can’t answer that question. All of science acknowledges that the human being comes into existence when the sperm fertilizes the egg."
Amendment 48, of course — the subject of the debate — would protect children from the moment of fertilization. "Our opponents say, ‘well, we don’t know when the moment of fertilization is.’ But that egg knows, because as soon as one sperm fertilizes that egg, a dramatic change happens in the cell wall, and all the other suitors, they’re rebuffed. It’s too late. There’s now a new precious little boy, or a little girl, right there. And we need to love and protect all children beginning right at that first moment of life."
Responding to Clinkenbeard’s charge that Personhood would even force a raped child to give birth, Enyart said, "Abortion for incest is cruel. What it does is it encourages the would-be criminal to rape his young relative, and he knows that if he impregnates her, he can bring her to Planned Parenthood, and nationwide, systematically, Planned Parenthood, Crystal’s former employer, does not they refuse to comply with mandatory reporting for suspected sexual abuse of minors. Just as in California, in August, a case noted by the California Supreme Court, a man will commit incest, impregnate his young relative, bring her to an abortion clinic, they will ask no questions, he’ll take her home and continue to abuse her. So the abortion clinic often sends the victim home with her rapist to be continually sexually molested."
Clinkenbeard brought up ectopic pregnancy and health issues, claiming 48 would prevent action, to which Enyart responded, "You don’t kill the mother to save the baby, and you don’t kill the baby to save the mother. You try to love and protect both. And when the baby dies, as is commonly the case, that’s a tragedy, but you don’t stop half-way, like in a partial-birth abortion, stop and kill the baby. If the mother’s life is at risk, you deliver the baby. You do a C-section. You remove the baby. You don’t deliver him half-way breach, stop, kill the baby, and then continue. That is not loving and protecting the mother. That’s the intention to kill the baby. And that’s what’s wrong. That’s why we have to love and protect all children."
Finally, refuting Clinkenbeard’s claim that Planned Parenthood is concerned for the well being of women, Enyart said, "Abortion is not only cruel to children, it’s cruel to the moms. And we owe it to the next generation of young women in the state of Colorado and our country to protect them from the cruelty of convenience and pressure to kill their little baby, their boy or girl, and so this amendment is a historic opportunity for the State of Colorado to acknowledge the God-given Right to Life comes, like the last caller said, at that moment of creation. Our rights don’t come from the hospital, they don’t come from the delivery doctor, the OBYGN. Our rights come from our Creator. And Planned Parenthood and Crystal, they cannot say when life begins, even though it is so obvious in any biology textbook, fetology, that life begins at that moment. All you have to do is refrain from killing it to find out what a beautiful and precious little boy or girl is right there in that embryo."
The full program is available online:
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/crystal-clinkenbeard-and-bob-enyart/1305153968/
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
The Difference Between Wisdom & Folly
Praise God! A piece of criticism offers opportunity to make our argument more strongly, and move the ball forward toward the Personhood Strategy...
Kevin, a conservative Catholic blogger (I'll not identify him further, so that I don't discourage others from posting criticism -- the point is to dialogue, not to jump on everybody who criticizes, but rather to answer their points), posted this in response to our "Don't Let the Elections Get You Down" message:
Kevin,
Thank you for your strongly felt opinion. I'm disappointed that you didn't have better reasons for voting for Am. 48, but I trust you mean that you disagreed with the strategy, not with the goal.
Our society will never start to respect such laws until they are passed. Period. We must try, or we will never achieve anything.
We admire Kristi because she had the courage to propose a principled law when so many, even on our side, reject principle in favor of compromise. But Kristi was hardly alone in leading the Personhood effort. Besides CRTL's full-scale efforts, there were many organizers, and 1,000 petition gatherers who moved the fight forward.
You're seeming to think the pro-life fight will be won by a margin of support in the legislature, or in the courts. That's not so.
Truly, it doesn't matter what the courts do yet, because abortion is already 100% enshrined, and today's court won't change that. We either try other means, or we give up.
Look at our $10,000 Challenge -- even if we'd waited for 2 or 3 more conservative Supreme Court appointments before trying this, it wouldn't have given us victory, because none of the Supreme Court justices there already would have supported this.
That doesn't mean victory is impossible. It means we must use other means to achieve victory, or else accept that victory may be 100 years away.
The courts, and the politicians will acknowledge Personhood if the people urgently shout for it! The judges and the politicians will NEVER take up the call for Personhood unless the people do it first.
That's what we've done!
And that's why moving forward from this point is so important. If they aren't paying attention this year, they will when we increase the margin by 10% or 20%. It's a matter of educating the public. That's how we'll achieve victory.
And, frankly, that's wisdom -- finding the way toward victory when other means have failed, and victory seems impossible.
Kevin, a conservative Catholic blogger (I'll not identify him further, so that I don't discourage others from posting criticism -- the point is to dialogue, not to jump on everybody who criticizes, but rather to answer their points), posted this in response to our "Don't Let the Elections Get You Down" message:
"a full 27% of voters in Colorado (where even many Republicans are pro-choice) voted not just to prohibit all abortions, but also to end embryonic stem cell research, some forms of in vitro fertilization, and those forms of birth control that cause abortions,"We replied thus:
One of the few reasons I could bring myself to vote for it was because I didn't want it to fail by too much. What makes you think our society would respect such a law if passed? Amendment 48 backers overreached and wasted resources that would have been better directed elsewhere, such as swinging a few state senate or house races. Why was the effort led by a 21-year-old woman? However articulate she is, that's folly. Pro-lifers can't just pretend that these largely futile efforts are good for the cause. We need to ask ourselves if we are tempting God by our efforts. We sometimes ask too much from a deeply mistaken society. Had the Supreme Court even ruled on Amendment 48, it could have only further enshrined our wicked laws, and probably created a few new ones. What good is it if you have justice on your side, if you don't have wisdom?
Kevin,
Thank you for your strongly felt opinion. I'm disappointed that you didn't have better reasons for voting for Am. 48, but I trust you mean that you disagreed with the strategy, not with the goal.
Our society will never start to respect such laws until they are passed. Period. We must try, or we will never achieve anything.
We admire Kristi because she had the courage to propose a principled law when so many, even on our side, reject principle in favor of compromise. But Kristi was hardly alone in leading the Personhood effort. Besides CRTL's full-scale efforts, there were many organizers, and 1,000 petition gatherers who moved the fight forward.
You're seeming to think the pro-life fight will be won by a margin of support in the legislature, or in the courts. That's not so.
Truly, it doesn't matter what the courts do yet, because abortion is already 100% enshrined, and today's court won't change that. We either try other means, or we give up.
Look at our $10,000 Challenge -- even if we'd waited for 2 or 3 more conservative Supreme Court appointments before trying this, it wouldn't have given us victory, because none of the Supreme Court justices there already would have supported this.
That doesn't mean victory is impossible. It means we must use other means to achieve victory, or else accept that victory may be 100 years away.
The courts, and the politicians will acknowledge Personhood if the people urgently shout for it! The judges and the politicians will NEVER take up the call for Personhood unless the people do it first.
That's what we've done!
And that's why moving forward from this point is so important. If they aren't paying attention this year, they will when we increase the margin by 10% or 20%. It's a matter of educating the public. That's how we'll achieve victory.
And, frankly, that's wisdom -- finding the way toward victory when other means have failed, and victory seems impossible.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Don't Let the Elections Get You Down!
Get Up & Help Instead!
Please! Don’t be demoralized because of Election Day! Amendment 48 was a bright, shining, positive example of progress — a victory which should outweigh any other setbacks we had that day. We at Colorado Right to Life would like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the hard work and determination you invested in the Amendment 48 campaign!
Your commitment to carry petitions, to get the signatures of your friends, coworkers and complete strangers — the gathering of more than 130,000 signatures — was the single most promising pro-life happening in this state in 40 years! When you and your friends went out to gather nearly twice the number of legally required signatures, it meant more volunteers were mobilized, gathering more signatures, than for any previous ballot initiative in Colorado history! It was the most energy and vitality we’ve ever seen in the pro-life movement!
But still, how can 27% of the vote be a victory???
Because Amendment 48 wasn’t your typical “abortion restriction.” Amendment 48 was the strongest anti-abortion legislation seriously considered in any state at any time since Roe v. Wade! In 5280 Magazine, our opponents expressed fear that we were shifting from the “chip-away” strategy of regulating abortion — they understood that the Personhood movement is nothing less than a direct attack upon “the abortion right” and all the central legal arguments in favor of abortion!
Consider this: Previous polls have showed only 10 or 15 percent of Colorado voters support a total end to abortion.
But this year, a clear, cogent, “life at conception” message got through to huge numbers of Colorado citizens — a full 27% of voters in Colorado (where even many Republicans are pro-choice) voted not just to prohibit all abortions, but also to end embryonic stem cell research, some forms of in vitro fertilization, and those forms of birth control that cause abortions, even while facing near-total media opposition, lacking the support of many prominent politicians and organizations, and while being outspent 10-1.
Despite all that, our campaign — yours and ours — doubled or tripled the number of people who realize that unborn children are Persons. They understand that, no matter how popular or “socially acceptable” certain forms of killing may be, no one can ever have a “right” to kill an innocent person for any reason. Nearly 600,000 voters were willing to stand up and proclaim that an unborn child at any stage of development is a Person with an unalienable Right to Life!
That’s not just a VICTORY — THAT’S HISTORIC!!!
Those numbers show the encouraging promise of the Personhood strategy — if people think abortion is something to be regulated, they’ll aim for a good middle ground and they’ll never support an end to all abortion. But if we educate them about the Right to Life, and present it as a moral evil worse than slavery, most people will see there IS no middle ground, and abortion will end.
This strategy — an older strategy, given new life — should give us all hope that sometime in the next few years we will see a total end to abortion, embryonic destruction and abortifacient use in the state of Colorado! Perhaps elsewhere as well. What’s more, FOCA (the Freedom of Choice Act) won’t stop Personhood — once Personhood is established, it overrides FOCA!
The whole Personhood campaign became a spectacular opportunity to spread the Right to Life message! Never before have we had such access to the ear of the public, and so many chances to talk to people about the concept of unalienable rights and how life begins at the moment of fertilization. We could never have reached this many people without Amendment 48.
Personhood will energize and mobilize the pro-life movement! Now, we must reach people who have never heard these concepts before! We must continue that outreach! That’s where you come in. We must continue this conversation with our citizens!
We’re not asking for money — this is a thank you letter, and a letter of encouragement! We want you to know we haven’t given up. We want to know you haven’t given up either! Will you invest your volunteer time on this mission???
Colorado Right to Life was always at the center of the Personhood effort, but now that we have access to the campaign’s volunteer list, we are asking you to join with us and continue the Personhood campaign! There’s so much more still to be done!
Please, call us at 303-753-9394 or e-mail us at office@coloradorighttolife.org or write to us at 1535 Grant Street #303, Denver, CO 80203, and let us know you’re with us! Let us know you want to be a part of a continued lifesaving ministry to the people of Colorado, so they can know the truth of God’s laws against murder, and can turn back the Culture of Death!
Your commitment to carry petitions, to get the signatures of your friends, coworkers and complete strangers — the gathering of more than 130,000 signatures — was the single most promising pro-life happening in this state in 40 years! When you and your friends went out to gather nearly twice the number of legally required signatures, it meant more volunteers were mobilized, gathering more signatures, than for any previous ballot initiative in Colorado history! It was the most energy and vitality we’ve ever seen in the pro-life movement!
But still, how can 27% of the vote be a victory???
Because Amendment 48 wasn’t your typical “abortion restriction.” Amendment 48 was the strongest anti-abortion legislation seriously considered in any state at any time since Roe v. Wade! In 5280 Magazine, our opponents expressed fear that we were shifting from the “chip-away” strategy of regulating abortion — they understood that the Personhood movement is nothing less than a direct attack upon “the abortion right” and all the central legal arguments in favor of abortion!
Consider this: Previous polls have showed only 10 or 15 percent of Colorado voters support a total end to abortion.
But this year, a clear, cogent, “life at conception” message got through to huge numbers of Colorado citizens — a full 27% of voters in Colorado (where even many Republicans are pro-choice) voted not just to prohibit all abortions, but also to end embryonic stem cell research, some forms of in vitro fertilization, and those forms of birth control that cause abortions, even while facing near-total media opposition, lacking the support of many prominent politicians and organizations, and while being outspent 10-1.
Despite all that, our campaign — yours and ours — doubled or tripled the number of people who realize that unborn children are Persons. They understand that, no matter how popular or “socially acceptable” certain forms of killing may be, no one can ever have a “right” to kill an innocent person for any reason. Nearly 600,000 voters were willing to stand up and proclaim that an unborn child at any stage of development is a Person with an unalienable Right to Life!
That’s not just a VICTORY — THAT’S HISTORIC!!!
Those numbers show the encouraging promise of the Personhood strategy — if people think abortion is something to be regulated, they’ll aim for a good middle ground and they’ll never support an end to all abortion. But if we educate them about the Right to Life, and present it as a moral evil worse than slavery, most people will see there IS no middle ground, and abortion will end.
This strategy — an older strategy, given new life — should give us all hope that sometime in the next few years we will see a total end to abortion, embryonic destruction and abortifacient use in the state of Colorado! Perhaps elsewhere as well. What’s more, FOCA (the Freedom of Choice Act) won’t stop Personhood — once Personhood is established, it overrides FOCA!
The whole Personhood campaign became a spectacular opportunity to spread the Right to Life message! Never before have we had such access to the ear of the public, and so many chances to talk to people about the concept of unalienable rights and how life begins at the moment of fertilization. We could never have reached this many people without Amendment 48.
Personhood will energize and mobilize the pro-life movement! Now, we must reach people who have never heard these concepts before! We must continue that outreach! That’s where you come in. We must continue this conversation with our citizens!
We’re not asking for money — this is a thank you letter, and a letter of encouragement! We want you to know we haven’t given up. We want to know you haven’t given up either! Will you invest your volunteer time on this mission???
Colorado Right to Life was always at the center of the Personhood effort, but now that we have access to the campaign’s volunteer list, we are asking you to join with us and continue the Personhood campaign! There’s so much more still to be done!
Please, call us at 303-753-9394 or e-mail us at office@coloradorighttolife.org or write to us at 1535 Grant Street #303, Denver, CO 80203, and let us know you’re with us! Let us know you want to be a part of a continued lifesaving ministry to the people of Colorado, so they can know the truth of God’s laws against murder, and can turn back the Culture of Death!
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