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July 07, 2009 02:10 AM UTC

Clips from the Personhood Amendment Press Conference

  • 22 Comments
  • by: sufimarie

(We hereby declare that life begins at…um…what is it again? – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Also at s2

Last year in Colorado, voters overwhelmingly struck down Amendment 48 by a ratio of 3:1. This is the amendment that was intended to give legal rights to a fertilized egg by re-defining a person as beginning at the moment of fertilization. Last year, there were many problems and questions about the effects of this amendment that the proponents simply could not or would not answer.

What has changed in this go round is the excision of the term “from the moment of fertilization” and replaced it with “the beginning of biological development of the human egg” which, as shown in the video, the proponents are unable to define.

On July 2, they held a press conference to officially announce their re-introduction of a very slightly modified version of the amendment that voters defeated 74% to 26%. The following is a video of some interesting moments from the conference interspersed with some context and personal commentary of mine.

PersonhoodUSA is an organization made up of some of the main players behind Amendment 48.  Also at the press conference was Leslie Hanks of Colorado Right to Life which was booted from its national organzation for being “divisive” and lacking “common sense”.

Please take a look at the footage on the video and let me know what you think of what they are doing and why they are doing it again so soon.

…and yes, I’m biased.

Comments

22 thoughts on “Clips from the Personhood Amendment Press Conference

  1. Pretty typical repub wedge issue tactics.

    This will energize those zealots and one issue types, and while they’re in the booth, they’ll vote red. Penry, Gardner, and “diggs” won’t bring ’em out, but this will. I predict they’ll get the signatures.

    It’s not about protecting anything. it’s about votes.

  2. but here goes–I think they are determined to get this passed, even if the voters don’t want it because in their minds, they have convinced themselves that somehow folks just didn’t “get it” the last time it came up for a vote. I think they really believe that Coloradans want this, believe this and support this. (In other words, they are delusional.)

    If at first you don’t succeed…

    1. They don’t care very much about the Republican party.  They think they are right and that’s the only thing hat should matter to voters.

      That voters don’t really agree with what appears to be so extreme they down play as poor understanding.  This time we’ll better articulate our message.

      Articulate away- Colorado voters don’t want this kind of government intrusion.

      In the end this will hurt the Republican candidates in statewide races.  They’ll have to comment one way or another- and that’s a now win situation. Sure, Lamborn could support it and get re-elected. Likewise some others- but it’s going to hurt Penry and the R Senate candidate.

      1. …Use the language of the opponents in explainiong his anti position.

        “I am proudly pro-life, and will work to eliminate abortion, but this extreme measure goes too far and inserts the government into too many private personal relationships between doctors and patients.”

        One can dream…

            1. In fact, it hurts him within his own party if he doesn’t come out hard for this Amendment. He has to look like the most conservative to win the primary.  

      2. in circles. They have no consistent message. They can’t define their own terminology especially in real scientific terms.

        Keith Mason’s introduction about we are right, everyone else is wrong is the root of their strategy… if you can call it a strategy.  

  3. No argument from me.

    I Didn’t put it right, but what I meant is that the personhood zealots are very determined to as you say, make us get it, and the republicans are taking full advantage.

    Ther’ll be plenty of red money, and Caplis, going ito this red herring.

    Actually, it’s scary. Because, you never know……  

    1. partly because he apparently fantasizes about running for something some day.  Partly because Archbishop Chaput won’t either.

      But Caplis will fan the flames as best he can because that’s good for ratings. Or at least he’ll think so.

  4. I wish it was prettier but I did the best I could.

    When I talk to my friends about the strange things the proponents say and do, they don’t  believe me. It’s nice to have them in their own words talking about their plans of domination.  

  5. Thanks for putting this video together. It’s fascinating to watch the use of circular logic with no sense of shame. The repetitive appeals to “biological development” is even more absurd given these folks evident lack of knowledge on basic biological functions in reproduction. How one can make moralized proclamations that are factually and linguistically devoid of meaning is beyond me. Regardless of that, it is clear that they think stripping semantic content from their text is some brilliant strategic maneuver. In fact, by doing so they are unintentionally stripping any moral or legal meaning out of it as well–which makes the “We are right!” proclamation an act of self-parody.

    It seems a deep misunderstanding of how courts undertake decision-making is at work here. If they think the courts would take a demonstrably meaningless text as a basis to undermine Griswold v. Conn. and start outlawing various forms of contraception (the obvious goal of these folks), they are smoking crack.

    Whatever. Colorado voters have clearly demonstrated in recent years that religious authoritarianism isn’t their thing. I don’t doubt they will do so again.  

    1. I spoke with Keith Mason afterward so as to get some clarification of what the birth control comments were about. He said he would like to see the pill “modified” so that it would never prevent implantation.

      I don’t know how that is possible.

      They seemed unprepared but on a mission.

  6. Any law that proposes to “let the courts decide” what it means, regardless of the subject matter deserves defeat simply for the fiscal note alone.

    As for their “new” strategy, I get the impression this is a different bunch of kooks from last time.  48 was mostly a solo operation from Kristi Burton and an out of state anti-choice lawyer.  Their fundraising was poor, and their messaging bizare.  If you watch some of KBs news conferences and interviews last fall, you can hear the dog whistle language making coded criticisms of Planned Parenthood in her phrasing.  The 5-10% of the voters with whom that language resonates know what she’s talking about, and to the rest it sounds like gibberish.  It’s perhaps intentionally not a direct attack, as Planned Parenthood has tremendous positive associations throughout the state; even in more religious rural areas where they are one of the primary low cost providers of affordable quality reproductive healthcare (which has nothing to do with abortion.)

    Personhood USA seems like a more organized nationwide movement, though certainly their messaging still needs some work.  They’re directly aiming at the Roe decision written by Justice Harry Blackmun, stating that, “[if the] suggestion of personhood [of the fetus] is established, the case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment.”  It’s consistant with what they believe, so props to them for at least being (somewhat) honest.

    Still, they’d be better off trying to pass this is Mississippi or Louisiana, if a court challenge is what they want.

  7. Amendment 48 got all of the pro-choice groups in the state to really push hard against it. I think that having another “personhood” amendment on the ballot might actually cause single issue Democrats to come out in a year where they might choose to stay at home given their displeasure with Ritter and Bennet.

    Good diary Sufi.

    1. they lost by fifty points only eight months ago. It’s kind of insulting that they would waste resources to push it again. Opposition will be energized and Rs will have to say it is extreme.

      Good for them, the Rs could use a reasonable stance on some things.

      🙂

    1. …in an online law school?

      Doesn’t co-ed originally refer to dorms?  No dorms, no co-eds, right?

      And I do have to admit that Kristi Burton is cute…in a fundamentalist, home-schooled, screw loose kind of way.

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