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October 04, 2010 07:03 PM UTC

Amendment 62 and Cory Gardner's Assault on Women's Rights

  • 40 Comments
  • by: rdawkins22

( – promoted by ClubTwitty)

Republican Senate candidate, Ken Buck, has garnered a great deal of state and national media attention for his unusually rigid view of what rights a woman has to an abortion.  His contention that even in instances of rape and incest, abortion is still morally repugnant and should not recognized as legally permissible has even been fodder for campaign ads against the Weld county district attorney.

With all of this negative attention focused on Buck, it has gone largely unnoticed that CD-4 Republican Congressional candidate, Cory Gardner, holds similar views on abortion and women’s rights more broadly defined. In fact, where they do differ, Gardner’s pro-life position on abortion is even more extreme than Buck’s.

Last week, in an interview in the Coloradoan, Gardner, who is running against Betsy Markey, elaborated on his pro-life views and suggested that he makes no exceptions. When asked if he would allow exceptions for rape, incest, or in instances where the mother’s life was in danger, he simply answered, “I’m pro-life, and I believe abortion in wrong.”

What’s more, whereas Buck has vacillated on Colorado’s Amendment 62-he was for it before he was against it-Gardner ardently supports it.  Otherwise known as the personhood amendment, Amendment 62 is similar to 2008’s Amendment 48, which sought to define life as beginning at conception and gives developing embryos equal protection and due process of the law.

Instead of using the term “conception,” however, Amendment 62 uses the term ‘biological development.’ The term ‘biological development’ allows pro-life supporters to define the beginning of life at the moment a woman’s egg is fertilized by the male sperm. This minor semantic change from Amendment 48 is intended to keep pro-choice advocates from trying to define conception–and by implication life itself–as beginning at the moment the fertilized embryo attaches to a woman’s uterine wall.

Unlike Amendment 48, there is no ambiguity as to the intention of this new initiative. Not only would this new amendment make all abortions illegal, it would also criminalize common forms of contraception–including IUDs and some forms of birth control pills.

In other words,  even though Colorado voters overwhelmingly rejected Amendment 48 in 2008, including all 18 counties of CD-4, extreme pro-life advocates like Gardner are pushing an even more radical personhood amendment this election cycle.  (Note: Yuma county, where Gardner grew up, rejected the measure by nearly 22 percentage points.)

What’s most troubling about Gardner’s record, however, is that his assault on women’s rights does not end with the personhood amendment. While in the state legislature, Gardner has consistently voted against measures that would expand or strengthen women’s rights.  In 2006, he voted against HB1212, which would have allowed, but not require, pharmacists to prescribe emergency contraception.

And, in 2007, he co-sponsored a bill (SB143), which never made it out of committee, that would have made abortion illegal except in limited instances where the woman’s life was in danger.

In 2008, moreover, he was one of only six representatives to vote against HB1276, a bill that required employers “to provide reasonable paid or unpaid break time for nursing mothers to express milk.”

Lastly, Gardner recently endorsed the House Republicans ‘Pledge to America,’ which is an economic agenda that will run up the deficit, repeal efforts by the last two administrations to pull the country out of the recession and contain long-term federal spending, and create a recipe for economic catastrophe along with the prospect of a double-dip recession.

The fragile state of the economy is fundamentally a women’s issue because, according to a recent study by the Center for American Progress, unmarried women are most vulnerable to economic insecurity and they have been disproportionately affected by the recession.

In an election year when public anger is directed toward the Washington establishment and the incumbent party, it is easy to forget that elections are about choices.  As such, it is important to ask: What is the alternative? In the case of Cory Gardner, the alternative vision for America may be one in which Americans in general and women in particular are less free and are less able to determine their own destiny.  Is that really want we want America to be?

(Note: See my original post at www.ryanpolitics.blogspot.com for the appropriate links.)

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40 thoughts on “Amendment 62 and Cory Gardner’s Assault on Women’s Rights”

  1. Thousands of women voters in Larimer and Weld say “whaaa…?”

    Cory Gardner is the fakest man in Colorado politics today. It’s not too late for voters to realize it.

  2. To quote Rush Limbaugh from last nights “Family Guy”… “you see Brian, for even CONSIDERING a Woman’s point of view. Deep down you are a liberal, NOT a conservative.”

      1. I actually only recited ONE line from an otherwise poignant episode. Rush will not be happy with how his voice was used.

        not to worry I did not give it ALL away.

  3. This minor semantic change from Amendment 48 is intended to keep pro-choice advocates from trying to define conception–and by implication life itself–as beginning at the moment the fertilized embryo attaches to a woman’s uterine wall.

    Whether defined by fertilization or biological development both personhood amendments would ban most common methods of birth control.  In fact it’s one of the proponents stated goals.  What’s different with this language is that it would protect embryos created via cloning (no fertilization) from being the subjects of stem cell research.

  4. “chief abortionist in charge”, Cory Gardner wouldn’t win. But you know, this election is about some other things too. Like… this disastrous past two years we’ve suffered under the liberal Obama agenda, the failed stimulus, the sky high unemployment, etc. Markey herself is trying to sound like a conservative – if you didn’t know her and read her flyer, you’d think she was a Republican.

    1. Did you read her stuff in 2008? It read exactly the same way.

      But if you and your cohorts are finally abandoning failed social conservative issues, I for one will applaud you. Just keep it out of things the next time momentum isn’t on your side.

      1. What has this nation come to? Social conservative issues are not “failed”, and I proudly stand by them. I would refer you to this diary, which garnered over 500 comments. I’d say it’s still a hot topic.

                    1. Okay, now that I got that off my chest… how so? I’m not the one parroting the words of others.

        2. then why aren’t the ‘pubs running on them this year?

          Abortion isn’t murder because zygotes aren’t children. If you refer back to your own diary, you’ll see that you were unable to ever answer that point. No one ever argued that fertilized eggs possessed souls until those not-really-Christian (in your view) Catholics needed a reason to argue against contraception. That wasn’t anything any denomination argued until the last couple of centuries.

          1. And in your inevitable denial, please tell me at what moment a zygote becomes a baby?

            Republicans aren’t running on social issuer per se, because people are more concerned about the economy right now. However, they are still all very pro-life, because they know most people agree with them.

            1. We wouldn’t have separate words for them if they were.

              They do not possess life until they’re able to live on their own. That’s an indefinable moment and one left up to God, not man, to decide.

              1. So how are we supposed to know when performing an abortion is murder if only God knows? Also, there are plenty of people who are not able to live on their own without some sort of medical assistance, and they are still people afforded protection from murder.

                1. Abortion almost exclusively happens in the first trimester, well before the zygote or fetus is able to live on its own. And “murder” is pretty well defined as not including acts of mercy (say, if the fetus doesn’t have a brain) or those that save lives (isn’t that why we went to war?), so calling late-term procedures “murder” is hyperbole at best; more often, it’s a vicious lie.

                  Remember, the people you cite in your second sentence are alive. Zygotes are not.

            2. It’s 40 days, about when the expectant mother feels the quickening.

              In my wife’s belief, it’s when she has a dream and yet-to-be-born child has a personality.  That’s something that occurred in the case of all three of hers pregnancies.

              Everyone’s personal beliefs differ, which is why the people of Colorado aren’t about to enshrine yours in the Constitution.

              But we’ve already discussed this ad nauseum.  This thread was about how Gardner’s views mirror at least one iteration of Buck’s, and whether they will sell to Real People.

              I’m not going to contribute to this threadjacking.  If I want to continue the debate about when life starts, I’ll go to your diary and post the 500th “you’re full of shit.”

            3. From The Google:  In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion

            4. support your silly-assed equation of zygotes or fetuses and babies.

              I’ll refer you (again, since you ignored the last time I referred you to it) to the following passage from Exodus:

              Exod. 21:22-25, which is important for the abortion debate. This passage from the Covenant Code sets forth procedures to be followed when a pregnant woman who becomes involved in a brawl between two men has a miscarriage. A distinction is made between the penalty that is to be exacted for the loss of the fetus and the penalty for any injury to the woman. For the loss of the fetus, a fine is paid, as determined by the husband and the judges (v. 22). However, if the woman is injured or dies, lextalionus is applied: “Thou shalt give life

              for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” (vv. 23-25).

    2. It was the republicans who broke the economy and it is the democrats who have to fix it, AND deal with the millons of unemployed workers fired by the republicans, whose corporations have since seen their profits triple.

      http://finance.yahoo.com/famil…

      Republican policy under Ronald Reagan brought down the S&L’s.

      Republican policy under George W. Bush brought down the whole world.

      1. Democrats broke the economy. Regan fixed it, and Bush did well for six years (5% unemployment) until Dems took over the house and prevented the reforms to Fannie and Freddie that Republicans wanted.

        1. And if Fannie and Freddy were so key to the economy’s health, why didn’t the GOP bother to fix it while they had majorities? Sounds like they shoulder a decent portion of the blame there.

              1. When you have video of Barney Frank resisting any changes to Fannie and Freddie, saying they were just fine; it’s hard to pretend Dems weren’t at fault.

                1. What I am saying is that the GOP failed to fix Freddy and Fannie when they were running the show. They obviously didn’t think there was any problem with those institutions then. What suddenly changed in 2006? Do you know?

                    1. If they could tell that there was something wrong with Fanny and Freddy before the collapse two years ago, they could tell that four or more years ago when they were in charge. They didn’t. Why?

          2. I remember the year the feds bailed out Chrysler.  The GSA bought all Dodge pickups and Ramchargers (really shitty Blazer knockoffs).  The non 4wd vehicles were all deathtrap K-cars, which is what got Chrysler in trouble in the first place.

            There’s more than one way to do a bailout.  Chrysler got two.  Loan guarantees, and a whole lot of business thrown their way.

            1. I’m starting to understand how Reagan, Bush, and ‘pubs can take so many actions that teabaggers would crucify Dems for doing. Besides the emotive, IOKIYAR aspect, it seems that hiding costs keeps them from ever perceiving the true extent that these “conservatives” strayed from their ideals.

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