August 23, 2013 03:13 PM UTC

Talk-show host fails to prove that Herpin doesn't support personhood

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• by: Jason Salzman

KVOR talk-show host Jeff Crank said on-air Saturday that it’s impossible for GOP recall candidate Bernie Herpin to favor personhood, as claimed in a TV advertisement by Herpin’s opponents.

Crank raises his voice on his Jeff Crank Show as he explains why, citing evidence provided by the folks who made the anti-Herpin TV ad.

Crank: In the Pike’s Peak Citizens for Life survey, Mr. Herpin indicates that he believes that life begins at the moment of conception. In the same Pike’s Peak Citizens for Life survey, Mr. Herpin was asked if he supported a ban on embryonic stem cell research, and he marked ‘no’. Mr. Herpin’s opposition to a ban on embryonic stem cell research is in direct conflict to the claim that he supports the personhood amendment. He doesn’t support it, okay?

Sorry, Jeff, but Pikes Peak Citizens for Life actually asked Herpin, “Will you lead federal and/or state efforts to ban embryonic stem cell research.” Herpin answered no.

You’d still expect Herpin to favor a ban embryonic stem-cell research, even if he wouldn’t lead a fight against it, given Herpin’s belief, as stated on the Pikes Peak questionnaire that the stage of development that “we become persons” is “single cell.”

Herpin’s concept of personhood is also consistent with his statements in the survey that the court, in Roe v Wade, did not have the authority to “declare the pre-born as non-persons” and he would not appoint anyone who supports Roe.

Add to this Herpin’s agreement with the statement in the Pikes Peak survey, fashioned by an outfit that endorsed the personhood amendment in 2010, that the government does “not have the authority to declare any part of the human family to be non-persons,” and you have to conclude that Herpin supports personhood.

Maybe he’s changing his mind now, as Ken Buck and others have done before him, but it’s reasonable to say Herpin’s answers to the questionnaire show support for giving legal status to zygotes (fertilized eggs), thus, as the anti-Herpin ad points out, banning common forms birth control and interfering with many personal decisions.

(See survey questions here and Herpin’s answers here.)

Given the evidence, Crank should stop asking his listeners to pester Colorado Springs TV stations to stop running the anti-Herpin ads, as he did on Saturday, and he should stop promoting his own complaint trying to get TV stations to do so. Already, Tim Larson, general manager of KRDO TV has reportedly decided to keep running the ad, apparently sharing my view that it’s factual.