October 01, 2014 12:32 PM UTC

For use in the Gardner rabbit hole, here's more details on what fed personhood bill would do

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• by: Jason Salzman

(Everyone agrees but Cory – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Fox 31 Denver's Eli Stokols repeatedly tried to convince senatorial candidate Cory Gardner last week that there is such a thing as a federal personhood bill, and Gardner is a co-sponsor of it.

In so doing, Stokols cited Factcheck.org, which reported not only that the bill exists but that the Gardner campaign said Gardner signed it in an effort to ban abortion. Stokols also cited co-sponsors of the bill, who say it's personhood legislation.

This didn't dent Gardner, who continued, parrot-like, to say "There is no personhood bill."

Reporters going down this rabbit hole with Gardner in the future might like to know more details on what the Life at Conception Act would do, in addition to banning common forms of birth control, like Plan B and IUDs, if passed.

So I asked Lynn Paltrow, an accomplished attorney and executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, what she thought the Life at Conception Act would do. She confirmed that the bill is, in fact, a "personhood" bill.

“If it passed, it would be a federal law that makes the 14th Amendment applicable to the unborn,” Paltrow said.

“It arguably would create obligations on the federal government to protect equally the unborn by doing such things as outlawing abortion, even for rape and incest, outlawing in vitro fertilization, outlawing participation of pregnant women in drug trials that might be helpful to them but could create risks for the unborn,” said Paltrow, an attorney. “The only thing it does not permit is arresting women if there’s a death of an unborn child. But there is no prohibition against prosecuting doctors for murder—and there’s no prohibition against prosecuting pregnant women for other crimes.”

Paltrow continued: “For example, even if a woman seeks to maintain her pregnancy, a personhood law could be used to justify prosecuting a pregnant woman for risk of harm. The proposed law would do nothing to protect women from investigation, arrest, and prosecution under all the other mechanisms by which women are being arrested.”