Back in 2008 when Colorado, with it’s very easy to meet ballot initiative requirements, had Amendment 48 on the ballot it was a shock but it was also incredibly easy to mock and poke holes in. It is a classic example of single issue voters not thinking of all the follow-on problems of getting their desired issue enacted into state law, especially in the state constitution.
It went down in flames, as it should, 73% to 27%. But that did not kill this perncious and insane idea. In 2010 it just barely made the ballot to be rejected again 70% to 30% at the ballot box.
You would think that with resounding defeats like these that the folks pushing this idea would get the picture and fold up their tents and go home, but sadly that is not even close to the case. For the third time in as many election cycles there will be a so-called “personhood” amendment on the Colorado ballot.
Worse this is not an insanity restricted to the Centennial State. In the last few years more than 15 states have looked at this idea and, luckily, rejected it in one form or another. Even a deep red state like Mississippi in an off-year election could not muster anything close to a majority for this idea.
But it is not going to go away, not any time in the near future. Thanks to our very misguided Supreme Court and the Citizens United decision we have seen the formation of the first, but almost certainly not the last, Super-PAC dedicated to pushing personhood for fertilized eggs in the United States.
The Pro-Life Super-PAC (what an incredibly creative name they have!) is out there raising unlimited amounts of money and spending it in ways it thinks will help its cause. Most recently it has been running ads against Mitt Romney.
As Sarah Posner (the absolute, positive go-to person on religion from a Left-wing perspective) points out this group is using the same kind of deceptive ads and statements that the Catholic Bishops have been using in the contraception coverage battle. From yesterday’s post:
The ad reflects a growing misinformation campaign adopted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as well as evangelical opponents of the Department of Health and Human Services contraception coverage requirement under the Affordable Care Act. False claims that emergency contraception acts as an abortifacient were repeatedly made at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing two weeks ago, without correction or clarification.
It is time, probably far past time, to stop treating this as a silly-season side show. The fact of the matter is that these groups with their ultra-radical agenda have always been trying to end, not just abortion but, contraception as we know it. It has ridden along quietly in the slip-stream of the fight over choice but it has always been there.
Now with the push for personhood amendments, it is coming front and center. Well, friends and neighbors the time has come to draw a line in the sand.
We must stand up for women’s right to choose to control their reproduction. If a woman views a fertilized egg as a person, well I think she is wrong, but I am completely willing to let her act on it as she feels is correct.
What I am not willing to do, nor should any of you be willing to do, is to have the power of the State tell her what she must do, regardless of her opinion.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is to make women completely second class citizens in our nation. If a woman can not be trusted to make up her own mind to find out as much or as little information as she needs to make a decision and then live with it, we are saying that she is not competent at the most basic level.
It is time to start speaking up, with our politicians, with our co-workers, with our families about the need to end this pernicious idea of personhood for fertilized eggs. I know that it is not a comfortable conversation to have but if we don’t start having it, then the other side is able to move the window of acceptability for this idea just by repetition.
It is time to start telling politicians that sign “personhood pledges” that under no circumstances will you vote for them. It is time to write to state legislators and explain that you will always support any challenger of them, even if they are of our party, if they vote for such measures.
The anti-choice forces are quite cohesive, they tend to stay together because they are single issue voters, it makes them seem disproportionally powerful, but in the long run this is an issue that we can win on. The reality is that most women who are sexually active are using some form of birth control. If they are made aware time and again that this is threatened no matter what they might say in public they are likely to vote against those who want to prevent them from doing so.
The Republican War on Women is not going away. It has been shown to be uniformed and callus in the extreme. It has always been about slut shaming and controlling women, their reproduction and their sexuality to match some medieval idea about them.
Now is the time to make this a costly position to pander to for Republicans and, especially any Democrats, who can’t seem to get the message that living in a nation that has as one of its first principals equality, that this relegation to second class citizenship is not acceptable.
This election cycle is going to be key. We must work to take back State Houses and Legislatures as well as keeping the White House in Democratic hands. A failure here will almost certainly allow a change in policy in the Supreme Court and further erosion's of women’s rights nation wide.
Given that there are now Super PAC’s supporting this issue and there seems to be a wide appetite for this kind of legislation or amendments in many states means the time to defeat this completely is now, before it can grow and spread even more widely than it already has.
So, find a way to work for preserving choice, vote and work for those candidates that will not hedge and will stand up firmly for women as real citizens able to make and live with their decisions, and most importantly be vocal and insistent that fetal personhood is an idea that has no place in our society.
The floor is yours.