August 07, 2012 03:03 AM UTC

No word yet from Coffman and Gardner, say personhood supporters

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• by: Jason Salzman

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Obviously, the key news from today’s personhood press conference was that personhood supporters turned in 112,121 signatures to Colorado’s Secretary of State, hoping to get their measure on the November ballot.

But the political ramifications of the personhood amendment should continue to be a key part of the coverage. The amendment, which would ban all abortions and some common forms of birth control, is clearly of interest to women, in particular, and women are a key voters in Colorado elections.

Personhood supporters have yet to hear from Rep. Mike Coffman and Rep. Cory Gardner about whether they will endorse their amendment this year, as they did in 2010, Personhood USA legal analyst Gualberto Garcia Jones told reporters today.

[An early headline on this post had the name “Tipton” instead of “Gardner”]

Garcia Jones said they’d welcome their support again, as they would any candidate, Democrat or Republican.

“To me, they’d be shooting themseves in the foot, if they backtracked,” said Colorado Right to Life Vice President Leslie Hanks. “It would be their loss.”

Coffman was listed as a personhood supporter in 2010. Coffman also supported Personhood in 2008, and, on one occasion, Coffman wrote Dan Caplis, of KHOW’s defunct Caplis and Silverman Show, a letter, specifically clarifying that Coffman, like all personhood supporters, does not support abortion, even in the case of rape and incest.

Likewise, Cory Gardner is praised on the Colorado Right to Life website for his support of personhood in 2010, and earlier this year, Kristi Brown, who initiated the personhood movement in Colorado, said that Rep. Cory Gardner was “one of our main supporters” in 2008.

“Kids are taught that life is cheap,” Hanks told me, referring to legalized abortion. “So we shouldn’t be shocked when we have massacres happening.”

She said collecting signatures is intended to counter this and is a “labor of love.”

“Coloradans trust and respect women,” said Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains Director Vicki Cowart in a news release.   “‘Personhood’ measures do not respect women and their families. Today, Planned Parenthood gears up for a third campaign.  We’re hopeful that the third verse will be the same as the first and second.”