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August 10, 2012 05:34 PM UTC

Personhood coverage should include fact that the measure would ban common forms of birth control

  • 25 Comments
  • by: Jason Salzman

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Update: In an article published today, the Colorado Statesman’s Peter Marcus reports that this year’s personhood  initiative has been clarified to state that only  “methods of birth control and assisted reproduction that kill a fetus” would be affected. This presumably refers to the forms of birth control, like IUDs and some forms of the Pill, that can kill a fetus, by preventing implantation. So nothing has changed birth-control wise about personhood since 2010. The same forms of birth control would still be outlawed. Marcus also reports for the first time that Rep. Cory Gardner will not endorse personhood this year, because, like Rep. Mike Coffman said, he’s running for federal office and this is a state issue.

———

If you know the name “Ken Buck” you undoubtedly know that the personhood amendment would, among other things, ban common forms of birth control.

Buck claimed not to know this when he endorsed personhood, so he un-endorsed it during the 2010 campaign, saying he didn’t understand that personhood would ban such things as IUDs and common birth-control pills.

Ever since, it’s been an established fact that a personhood law would ban common forms of birth control.

Yet, in this week’s coverage of personhood, only The Denver Post and the Durango Herald reported the critical fact that the personhood measure would ban common forms of birth control.

The Denver Post’s Electa Daper wrote Aug. 9 that “some forms of birth control” would “effectively” be banned under personhood. The Post story stated:

On Monday sponsors of the ballot initiative, which would amend the state constitution to effectively ban all abortions and some forms of birth control, turned in petitions with 112,121signatures to Colorado’s secretary of state. [BigMedia emphasis]

The Durango Herald reporter Joe Hanel described personhood this way in an Aug. 8 about state ballot initiatives:

This year is the third time around for the Personhood initiative, which seeks an amendment to the state constitution to declare that embryos from the moment of conception have the same legal rights as any person. The amendment could lead to bans on abortion, common forms of birth control and fertility treatments. [BigMedia emphasis]

Unfortunately, other coverage of personhood, including stories on 9News, CBS4, didn’t mention birth control at all.

That’s a big omission, because, among personhood’s many and varied impacts, outlawing some common forms of birth control could be its most significant, at least from your everyday person’s perspective (Or every week’s person’s perspective or twice weekly person’s perspective, depending on who you are).

I’m not saying other basic facts about the amendment, that it would ban abortion and define life as beginning at the zygote (fertilized egg) stage, are of lesser importance. They’re also basic descriptors that should be worked into all personhood coverage.

But to be fair, reporting on the personhood amendment should at least include all three facts. It would 1) ban on abortion, 2) ban on common forms of birth control, 3) define life as beginning at conception.

There proposed amendment would do much more than that, of course, like ban abortion in the case of rape and incest. And the ramifications of giving legal rights to zygotes are mind-bogling.

And these many and varied components of personhood should be explored with current endorsers and opponents alike, as well as previous supporters, like candidates Joe Coors and Mike Coffman.

But ongoing reporting of the measure shouldn’t leave out the birth-control aspect.

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25 thoughts on “Personhood coverage should include fact that the measure would ban common forms of birth control”

  1. The new personhood initiative is written differently to only ban abortifacient forms of both control such as the morning after pill. Contraception methods that prevent conception would not be banned.

    2. consider almost all effective methods abortificient but I think most people do get that and all the other problems that would arise because this has been brought forward and trounced twice already.

      It’s quite possibly that the hypocrites (the percentage of anti-choice women being much larger than the percentage that  decline to use methods birth control that the right classifies as abortificient, most who support personhood must be hypocrites) among the overwhelming majority who are using or have used birth control during their lives, about 95% including about the same percent among Catholics and Evangelicals, pause once it’s time to actually vote against their own choices or for the possibility of having a miscarriage be investigated as a possible crime.  

      2. I was poll watching, and a very sweet but frantic woman came to ask me about the personhood initiative. She couldn’t figure out, once she read the language on the actual ballot, how she’d previously decided to vote. I tried several times to explain it to her and she remained in something of a panic. Finally, she went in to vote. Several minutes later, she came out and proudly informed me that once she got into the polling place, God told her to vote “no.” At this point, the light dawned and I figured out that (not having been raised religious myself, I missed this) she had never been looking for an explanation of the initiative–she just wanted permission to listen to her own beliefs and use her personal relationship with God to guide her vote, rather than listen to her pastor or husband.

        I think there may be many women in Colorado who hear the voice of God in voting booths when personhood is on the ballot.  

    3. Only a liberal Democrat could believe that windmills and birth control will decide the 2012 elections.

      Remember back to . . . yesterday?  Ah, those were the good old days.

  2. I have built my legal team.

    The day after personhood passes, we are going to file a class action lawsuit on behalf of all the frozen embryos in the state.  Our claim will be that with the same rights as any other person, they deserve to be born.

    Some will be born to the couples who stored them and continue to pay for their maintenance.

    However, we will demonstrate that the “abandoned’ frozen embryos are the responsibility of the lab, clinic, hospital or other facility maintaining them. And we will seek maintenance through adulthood and legal fees.

    There’s more to it – but this is the basic plan.  Approx $4million committed to conduct the litigation, the day after it passes.

      1. way to make criminal law pay is represent rich criminals.

        But think statute of frauds.  3 yrs fromt he time the fraud is discovered (includes determined- ie, I may have known something happened, but not known it was a fraud until much later)

        ANd treble damages.

      1. With a whole net set of fees.

        And here’s the thing- specific performance is pretty difficult to win. But mom could be writing checks for a long time.

    1. While studies are beginning to show that the morning after pill and oral contraceptives do not appear to be abortifacients, there are still studies out there that say they are.  And if this law is passed, believe me there will be many more.  A legal cloud will surround this issue in the same way the 20-week pain claim has, and because a zygote will be constitutionally considered a person, the courts may very well find in favor of those seeking to ban birth control.

      Do not underestimate the seriousness of this initiative or those who seek to have it passed.

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