Pregnant personhood (mahalie; cc Flickr)

“Clyburn survived but suffered a stillbirth as a result of the fall. She was arrested on homicide charges and is still being held without bail,” attorney Lynn M. Paltrow, founder and executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women told The Colorado Independent.

If the Colorado Personhood Initiative were to pass next year, Paltrow said the state will see a host of new criminal offenders like Clyburn and a growing docket of personhood crimes. Coloradans should brace themselves, she said, for “Carolinafication.”

Sponsored by pro-life activist organization Personhood USA as part of a national campaign, ballot initiative 25 would amend the state constitution in more than 20,000 places, granting even the cells of a fertilized egg full legal rights while working to effectively limit the rights of pregnant women. Legal experts say the law would lead to outlandish and oppressive applications.

“Constitutional jurisprudence is all about weighing interests,” former Planned Parenthood attorney Kevin C. Paul of Heizer Paul LLP told The Colorado Independent. “If you’re creating a new interest, one that hadn’t existed previously, then that interest is going to have to be weighed against [those of] anybody else. And if you take the position that an unborn fetus is to be legally treated just the same as a woman, then those two interests clash.”

Should the personhood initiative pass, he said, it’s clear women could be held by the state to ensure the safety of a fetus.

Mark Silverstein, legal director in Colorado of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the law would apply to women unaware they’re pregnant.

“Let’s say a woman is sexually active and she has a drink. If a drink is determined to harm a potential human life, well wouldn’t it be considered reckless endangerment to have that drink — or to engage in some other type of activity that would pose a risk to a fetus?”

Erik Maulbetsch, also with the ACLU in Colorado, wrote in an email that although the way fetal abuse and women’s rights issues interact are certainly a concern, in his eyes, the immediate threat of “outlawing hormonal birth control, in vitro fertilization and stem cell research, are the most dangerous and intrusive aspects of the proposal.”

Silverstein said the ACLU would actively campaign against Initiative 25, the “son of 48,” referring to the failed Initiative 48, last year’s version of the Colorado Personhood initiative.

Deal with ramifications later

The legal questions surrounding the initiative at this point are not a priority to Personhood USA, which lawyers like Paul see as a problem.

“It’s just a bad idea to try to amend the basis of all other law when the answer to the question ‘What will happen when I do this?’ is simply ‘I really don’t know.’ It is very hard to predict the difficult and even absurd results.

“The term ‘person’ has been legally defined,” he added, “but ‘the beginning of biological development’ has no definition yet.” Paul said the change in language would affect “our fundamental due process rights, the provision to inalienable rights, access to our courts and a right to justice.”

Presented with some of the hypothetical legal and rights issues related to the initiative, Keith Mason, co-founder of Personhood USA and one of the proponents of Initiative 25, said he didn’t want to speculate on the particulars of the bill.

That wasn’t good enough for Abe Saur, associate editor at lefty grab-bag politics and criticism site The Awl. He asked Mason whether clinically obese pregnant woman, who have a 30-percent higher risk than non-obese women of giving birth to children with heart disease, could be convicted of abuse or murder.

Will we be criminalizing the pregnant obese? Saur asked.

“I can’t answer that because it’s a hypothetical,” said Mason. “It’s like asking what would happen if a Martian came down and impregnated a woman on Earth. Let’s talk about real issues.”

Mason said he would “worry about the [legal] details later,” after the bill had passed.

Losing one’s personhood

“We know, based on hundreds of cases across the country, some of them in Colorado, that if, as a matter of law fetuses are described as separate persons, essentially pregnant women lose their Personhood,” Paltrow said.

The ACLU’s Silverstein said that although it would take numerous court cases to determine specifically how personhood would affect Colorado law, the effect of providing an unborn child personhood rights would unquestionably restrict the civil rights of women.

But Personhood Colorado director and the initiative proponent Gualberto Garcia Jones said the law is designed not to infringe rights but to extend them. Initiative 25 is slightly updated to be more inclusive than last year’s Initiative 48. We’ve changed “the initial marker for the beginning of life from fertilization to the beginning of the biological development of a human being,” he said.

“It’s intended to account for human beings who may be created through asexual reproduction in laboratories and used as raw material for research, organs, or stem cells. Fertilization would not have properly applied to asexually reproduced humans, but even asexually reproduced human beings have a definite biological beginning.”

It’s not that simple, said Silverstein. Presently, Colorado Code defines homicide, for example, as “the killing of a person by another.” The code also says that a person is someone who has been born and is alive at the time of the homicidal act. “If personhood applies to the criminal code, then you have homicide involving persons who have not even been born — to persons who might be a single cell,” Silverstein said.

Paltrow said that all it would take is one child welfare worker, one doctor, one individual to decide that a woman is endangering the life of her unborn child and she could be arrested and taken away.

“Colorado like every state has a civil commitment law. Civil commitment is a process established under mental health laws to confine individuals believed to pose a danger to themselves or others. If the [personhood] measure succeeds and the unborn are defined as having full constitutional rights, the state could commit a pregnant woman from the moment of fertilization if she is perceived to pose a danger to the fertilized egg.”

Carolinafication

The South Carolina Courts in 1997 ruled that fetuses that can survive outside the womb are persons under child abuse rules. As a result, 90 women have been arrested there, including Clyburn.

Another is South Carolinan, Regina McKnight, who smoked crack cocaine in 1999 while she was pregnant. Her unborn baby died in the eighth month. Twenty-four-year-old McKnight, who had three other young children at the time and was pregnant again, was convicted of murder and sentenced to a 12-year prison term.

“Once a personhood measure passed there would be no limit” to the controls the state could place on a suspect pregnant woman, said Paltrow. “Civil commitment laws could be used to keep a woman from, say, working in certain jobs, taking a wide range of medications, or even leaving town so she could have a vaginal birth after a c-section,” which can be seen as endangering the fetus.

These cases aren’t theoretical.

Paltrow described the experience of Angela Carter, who was undergoing treatment for severe cancer. Carter was forced by doctors concerned with the health of the fetus to have a cesarean section. Both Carter and the fetus died. The C-section was listed as one of the causes for the mother’s death . Although the courts found that the hospital acted outside of its legal rights at the time, Paltrow said the personhood amendment would make such actions common place.

“Once you have defined a fetus as a separate person from the mother, the state has the power to literally take custody of a pregnant woman from the moment she conceives.”

Jonathan Van Blerkom, a University of Colorado at Boulder professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology, agreed that zygotes in fertility clinics would be protected. He said not only researchers involved in embryonic stem cell research but also individuals looking to participate in in-vitro fertilization programs would be affected.

“We are talking about embryos in the one cell stage … What happens when a liquid nitrogen tank, which keeps embryos frozen in storage, is damaged? It happened during an earthquake in California. Concrete fell on a tank and all of the embryos were destroyed. Is there criminal liability there?”

Like others, Silverstein sees the personhood drive as misguided and a sweeping end run around the legal right to abortion. The proposed initiative simply has not been thought through, he said.

“If a woman has a beer while she is pregnant is she furnishing alcohol to a minor?”

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This new version would move the legal definition of a person further back into the reproductive cycle, granting cells the full spectrum of citizen rights. Opposition groups, including Colorado genetic and fertilization researchers, say the law would have spiraling consequences, that it would put women at risk and freeze current work in medicine and reproduction.

Colorado Right to Life and Personhood USA, the groups behind proposed Initiative 25, are undeterred by the fact that Coloradans voted against the test-run amendment last year by a margin of three to one. The new amendment is even farther reaching, moving the initial marker for the beginning of life from “fertilization” to “the beginning of the biological development of a human being.”

Personhood Colorado Director and the initiative proponent Gualberto Garcia Jones told The Colorado Independent that the change was made “to be more comprehensive in our definition of a person” and was not done to make it more appealing to voters.

“It’s intended to account for human beings who may be created through asexual reproduction in laboratories and used as raw material for research, organs, or stem cells. Fertilization would not have properly applied to asexually reproduced humans, but even asexually reproduced human beings have a definite biological beginning,” Jones explained.

“Over half-a-million Coloradans voted for the personhood initiative in 2008,” Jones said in a press conference announcing the campaign. “Their votes acknowledging the God-given right to life of the pre-born revolutionizes the pro-life movement and encourage us toward victory. ”

Science stoppage

Johnathan Van Blerkom, professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at the University of Colorado in Boulder, said if the personhood initiative were passed and upheld, it would have negative consequences for those not only involved in embryonic stem cell research but also for individuals looking to participate in in-vitro fertilization programs.

“To begin with [embryonic] stem cell research would stop,” Van Blerkom said. “There would be no research in genetics in the causes of the origins congenital diseases that occur in humans, how to fix them, how to protect them early.”

“You would find in this state, myself included, that embryo research would freeze. If there were criminal penalties or you were lumped together with abortionists for looking at embryos that are discarded because they are abnormal and you want to know why they are abnormal … no one is going to do it.”

Van Blerkom who works at a fertilization clinic as well, said that in-vitro fertilization would likely end in the state. He explained that the very process of fertilization can kill the embryo if more than one sperm gets into the egg. He said legal liability would loom over all procedures.

“It’s criminal liability. So would any program want to freeze an embryo in the state of Colorado? If the embryos die, as they frequently do when they are thawed, is that your responsibility? Is it an act of God? An act of science?”

Women’s rights

Monica McCafferty, media relations specialist for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, said the slightly modified language does nothing to protect the rights and safety of mothers.

“The new initiative has the same goal [as Amendment 48], to ban all abortion even in the cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the woman is in danger.”

McCafferty said that the language is vague and misleading but the ramifications are clear. “This would have huge implications.”

The legislation would end women’s right to choose in Colorado but would also hamper their ability to take many forms of birth control. McCafferty said the law would create major government intrusions into private lives.

“Coloradans have said time and again that they don’t want government or the courts in their lives when it comes making these personal private decisions.”

Jones frankly agreed. He said the goal of the amendment was to provide a child in the womb with due process and equality of justice.

“If passed, the Personhood Amendment would regain the state’s right to extend protections broader than those granted by the U.S. Constitution, and it would help transform our current decadent culture which currently values a person’s utility instead of their innate worth as a human being.”

But Jones didn’t agree that the language was vague.

“We have proposed a very simple, level-headed definition of what a person is. Namely, a person is a human being from the very beginning of his or her biological development.”

During the 2008 debate over the personhood initiative, Jessica Berg, professor of law and bioethics at Case Western Reserve University, told NPR that fertilized eggs in fertility clinics might need to be counted on the census and that pregnant women presumably could use the high-occupancy traffic lanes. There are absurdities that grow out of this kind of thinking, she said.

“If you don’t know you’re pregnant and you drink or do something dangerous — or you do something problematic very early on, and you’re in Colorado or even passing through Colorado — have you committed child abuse and endangerment?”

Power politics

Asked why voters did not support the initiative in the past Jones told The Colorado Independent that the initiative fell victim to power politics.

“We realize that there are very large political and corporate interests that will do everything in their power to twist this simple proposition into ludicrous scenarios. We’ll be more aggressive this time around in addressing those scare tactics.”

He said that with groups such as Planned Parenthood heading up a coalition of groups to oppose the initiative — last year’s coalition was called Protect Families, Protect Choices — the “pro-abortionists have almost unlimited funds.”

“You see, killing babies pays. Saving babies doesn’t.”

Jones said Planned Parenthood had taken in more than $1 billion in 2008.

RH Reality Check recently reported, however, that anti-abortion rights groups are not hurting for funds.

Wendy Norris, former editor for The Colorado Independent, wrote that personhood groups have brought in almost $58 million in donations. The American Life League, an organization where Jones recently served as legislative director, has brought in more than $35 million since 2003.

National drive

Emilie Ailts, executive director of Denver-based NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado, said that the initiatives are part of a nationwide attempt to advance personhood legislation. She said that Personhood USA initially had hoped to introduce legislation in 29 states but that Personhood USA now seems ready to mount grassroots efforts in only nine states.

Aits said that the initiative would change the Colorado Constitution in 20,000 different places.

“People can not even prognosticate how once it was fully implemented how it would affect peoples lives. It would impact so many laws.” She said it would impact not only fertilization and stem cell research but also access to many forms of birth control in the state.

NARAL, like Planned Parenthood and the Republican Majority for Choice banded together with the Colorado Bar Association and 90 other groups, many which do not normally deal with reproductive issues, to create Protect Families, Protect Choices, Aits said. Like last year, she expects the same groups to oppose the measure should it make its way onto the ballot.

“Everyone saw this as something so draconian in 2008 that it would have very negative impacts on the lives of women and their families in the state of Colorado.”

McCafferty said that while Protect Families, Protect Choices worked diligently to oppose last years personhood initiative, it was the Colorado voters who made the decision to reject the amendment.

Jones said he is confident his measure will pass.

“With so much money comes a lot of influence, earned and bought media, and friends in high places. Against this, personhood only has one thing, the truth. The amazing thing is that it is only a matter of time before we prevail.”

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But reproductive rights advocates aren’t cheering Roughrider State lawmakers just yet.

Senators voted 29-16, without debate, to kill the anti-abortion bill which passed the North Dakota House Feb. 17.

Opponents counter that contraception, in-vitro fertilization and stem-cell research would be threatened, and miscarriages could be prosecuted if legal recognition of fertilized eggs were upheld.

The controversial bill was backed by Personhood USA, which dubs itself “missionaries to the preborn.” The duo behind the nascent national movement to push due-process rights for fertilized eggs got their start carpetbagging in Colorado on the Amendment 48 campaign.

Keith Mason, from Wichita, Kan., and Cal Zastrow of Kawkawlin, Mich., have turned anti-abortion activism into a personal cottage industry — providing one more example of how Colorado’s broken ballot system has become an incubator for ideologically-driven political causes.

Though the measure failed miserably by a 3-to-1 margin, the group is taking its lessons learned on the road. Thus far, Personhood USA has been thwarted in Montana and now North Dakota, which has been ground zero for anti-abortion activism.

Meanwhile, the state lawmakers in Bismark approved two anti-abortion bills — that also attempt to advance the personification of fetuses — to send to Republican Gov. John Hoeven that are quite likely to be challenged in court, each for their own stark Fourth Amendment violation against unreasonable search and seizures, notwithstanding the thorny ethical dilemma.

One proposed law requires abortion clinics to offer a fetal ultrasound to women considering abortion. The second requires health care providers to tell women seeking an abortion that terminating her pregnancy would end a human life.

The Denver-based American Right to Life Action (RTL) leads the charge against Coulter with a YouTube video that shows excerpts of Coulter’s on-air radio freak-outs and calls on the acid-tongued author to apologize and retract her support for Romney.

In typical Coulter fashion, she calls the critics “crazy Romney froofers,” “fanatics” and “on the order of 9-11 conspiracy theorists” before hanging up.

The foul-mouthed pundit, whose stock in trade is making withering remarks about liberals, may have met her match in American RTL’s leaders: ex-Colorado GOP chairman Steve Curtis, Brian Rohrbough, whose son Daniel died in the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, and bombastic Pastor Bob Enyart — the three men are no shrinking violets themselves.

The controversial group was established in November 2007 shortly after Colorado Right to Life was booted from its affiliate status with National Right to Life for running a series of ads criticizing Focus on the Family founder James Dobson for not being anti-abortion enough in The Washington [D.C.] Times and Colorado Springs Gazette.

American RTL then moved on as an outspoken backer of Amendment 48, the failed 2008 Colorado ballot measure that sought to give constitutional rights to fertilized eggs.

Bashing Coulter appears to be its latest cause célèbre.

Says Rohrbough in a written statement accompanying the video release:

Ann Coulter has misrepresented and even defended some of the most egregious and immoral behavior. When Ann covers up aggressively anti-marriage action, and pro-abortion legislation that actually funds the killing of unborn children, she apparently is motivated by a desire to distort the truth and deceive Christians for some personal gain.

However, current health policy discussions about the role of publicly funded preventive reproductive health care services demonstrate a great step forward in accepting that health care includes family planning. In fact, debates over the availability of affordable birth control, sex education and the financial wherewithal to acquire said resources, are moot without considering the critical role government can play to empower individuals to make responsible reproductive health decisions. This includes the support of publicly funded family planning programs like Title X and the Medicaid family planning waiver.

According to a recent report by the Guttmacher Institute, 2 million unintended pregnancies and 810,000 abortions nationwide are prevented annually by publicly funded family planning services. In Colorado, publicly funded family planning centers are estimated to have saved more than $69 million in 2004 alone and, in 2006, prevented 28,500 unintended pregnancies and 11,900 abortions. These numbers demonstrate the value of publicly funded, equitable resources that enable families of all socio-economic backgrounds to acquire the means for a secure livelihood.

Further, the current economic downturn puts a significant strain on state resources. For Colorado, where state taxpayer dollars cover prenatal, delivery, and infant-care expenses for an estimated 28,000 births every year, the Guttmacher report states an easy path to minimize health care expenditures covered by the state is to invest in preventive reproductive health care.

Last year, Gov. Bill Ritter signed into law a bill that removed a statutorily imposed income-eligibility cap for preventive family planning services provided through the state’s Medicaid program. The law authorizes the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF) to determine an appropriate income-eligibility limit indexed to the federal poverty level that demonstrates budget neutrality. HCPF must submit a waiver to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for this change to go into effect. If approved, the waiver will enable Coloradans who don’t have health insurance and who otherwise would not qualify for full Medicaid benefits to be eligible for preventive reproductive health care services.

Colorado joined the ranks of more than 25 other states that are working to expand their publicly funded family planning programs to ensure affordable access to critical services that not only yield significant cost savings, but also have a tremendous impact on reducing unintended pregnancy, the need for abortion, and the spread of dangerous diseases.

Research verifies that $4 are saved for $1 invested in preventive reproductive health care services, from birth control counseling, distribution of contraceptive drugs and devices, and screenings for sexually transmitted infections. And Colorado pays just 10 cents of every $1 spent on these preventive family planning services, unlike other health care services covered by Medicaid.

As of 2008, 26 states had obtained federal approval to extend eligibility for Medicaid family planning services to individuals who would otherwise not be eligible; 20 states extend benefits under an income-eligibility formula similar to that pursued by Colorado. These states have demonstrated that expanded family planning services have dramatically reduced overall state and federal spending because of a decrease in Medicaid expenditures for prenatal, delivery, and infant care coverage.

More than 270,000 Colorado women and girls aged 13 to 44 needed publicly funded birth control services and supplies in 2006. This number will only rise as private insurance rates increase and Coloradans who have been laid off lose their health care benefits. Colorado already has taken steps to maximize the opportunities for savings, but given the current climate, we can and must do better.

By working in collaboration with medical experts, community-based organizations, and reproductive health care advocates, Colorado policymakers can develop common-sense strategies that ensure preventive family planning services are considered core health insurance benefits and essential components in comprehensive health care reform. As a result, Coloradans can realize both tremendous cost savings related to reproductive health care, and healthier families and communities.

Emilie Ailts is executive director of Denver-based NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado.

The Birth Control Protection Act passed on a largely party-line roll call vote of 39 to 25, with House Minority Leader Paul Weissman excused. Western Slope moderate Reps. Tom Massey, R-Poncha Springs, and Ellen Roberts, R-Durango, voted with the Democrats.

State Rep. Anne McGihon and state Sen. Betty Boyd, both Denver Democrats, crafted SB 225 to thwart future legal or constitutional challenges similar to Amendment 48 (pdf) — the failed 2008 ballot measure that sought to grant constitutional rights to fertilized eggs. The bill codifies “contraception or a contraceptive device as a medically acceptable drug, device, or procedure used to prevent pregnancy.” The lawmakers reasoned that having a clear-cut definition that complements current state law defining pregnancy will eliminate a debate over whether contraception induces abortions.

Prior to the floor vote, Rep. Amy Stephens, R-Colorado Springs, inexplicably related her personal experience with in-vitro fertilization and opposition to Amendment 48. Stephens urged House members to defeat the bill using the same logic of the failed poison pill amendment that provisions defining conception and contraception should be “married together.” The decades-old state legal definition of pregnancy is implantation of a fertilized egg, the commonly accepted scientific and medical description.

Rep. Cheri Gerou, R-Evergreen, reassured her colleagues that she “isn’t going to talk about myself, so guys you can quit squirming over there.” Gerou also rehashed her Friday talking points by opposing the bill over what she perceives as a freedom of choice limitation — though she never explained how defining contraception creates a chilling effect.

The bill passed the Senate March 5 and now moves to Gov. Bill Ritter’s office.

At the behest of Ritter and Catholic hospital representatives, Boyd amended the bill to exclude mifespristone, also known as RU-486, and other federally approved pharmaceuticals that induce abortion, from the proposed legal definition of contraception. With that provision added, it is believed Ritter will sign the bill.

During the floor debate, bill co-sponsor Rep. Anne McGihon (D-Denver) derided the wrecking amendment offered by Rep. Don Marostica (R-Loveland) as a back door tactic to grant “personhood” to fertilized eggs. The poison pill created a no-win situation for the bill’s backers who couldn’t support adding a religious provision to the law.

McGihon argued that the pregnancy definition amendment moved SB 225 into the realm of the religious rather than the medical and scientific definition that is already codified in Colorado law as implantation in the uterus. The Denver Democrat reminded her colleagues that voters resoundingly defeated Amendment 48 — the 2008 ballot measure that sought to confer constitutional rights on fertilized eggs as full-fledged persons.

Marostica’s amendment was defeated on a voice vote.

SB 225 proposes to add “contraception or a contraceptive device as a medically acceptable drug, device, or procedure used to prevent pregnancy” to the Colorado revised code. McGihon and her Denver counterpart Sen. Betty Boyd contend that having a clear-cut definition that complements current state law defining pregnancy will eliminate future debate over whether contraception induces abortions.

The bill passed its second reading on a noisy voice vote with 33 House members affirming support. It now moves to a third and final reading Monday.

But before they party hearty, a quick check of state law is in order. It reveals that the likelihood of a constitutional “personhood” amendment to give fertilized eggs civil rights is as flat as stale champagne.

The bill in Montana is similar in aim to Colorado’s Amendment 48, which was shellacked by a 3-to-1 margin at the ballot box. But Montana’s lawmakers must first pass the bill with 100 votes in order to move it to the state ballot, where voters will decide whether to amend the state Constitution to say that the “protection of unborn human life is a compelling state interest.”

State “personhood” backers hope to push their fight back to the U.S. Supreme Court under the guise of giving zygotes 14th Amendment protections that would criminalize abortion. Opponents counter that contraception, in-vitro fertilization and stem-cell research would be threatened, and miscarriages could be prosecuted if legal recognition of fertilized eggs were upheld.

However, the Montana Senate racked up just 28 “aye” votes, actually losing one vote and gaining three more “no” votes in the bill’s final tally. It goes next to the House, which is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans.

The Missoulian notes, in a recent story citing a Planned Parenthood spokesperson, that “there are 46 solidly pro-choice representatives in the House, leaving only 54 to vote in favor …”

28 + 54 = far short of the 100 vote minimum necessary to pass the antiabortion measure to the voters.

Should the question go before the voters, the premise faces a very tough public-perception hurdle. An Oct. 2008 MSU-Billings poll reports 53 percent of Montanans support abortion rights (pdf), with 34 percent opposing, 11 percent characterized as “neither/depends” and 1 percent undecided.

A similar bill before the North Dakota state Senate also faces an uncertain future.

(Photo/Stacy Lynn Baum, Flickr)

The proposed Birth Control Protection Act (SB 225). introduced by state Sen. Betty Boyd, D-Lakewood, is designed to stem future frontal assaults on contraception by conservative lawmakers and religious activists who argue birth control pills are an “abortifacient,” or a substance that can induce an abortion. By legally defining a “contraceptive or contraception as a medically acceptable drug, device, or procedure used to prevent pregnancy” Boyd believes she’s created a fail-safe to protect women’s reproductive freedom.

The challenge by Sen. Ted Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch, countered that SB 225 “codifies the ability to destroy life after conception” because some contraceptive methods prevent implantation of a fertilized egg. Harvey said that contraception that prevents conception is OK in the state statute but after the joining of egg and sperm it is inappropriate and morally reprehensible as if birth control pills can be programmed to act as heat-seeking missiles for free-floating zygotes.

Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, who backed Harvey at the podium, has long-proposed defining pregnancy at conception rather than the widely-held medical and scientific interpretation that hormone excretion following the implantation of a fertilized egg in a woman’s uterus determines pregnancy. But while Harvey carefully crafted his opposition arguments, Lundberg raised the controversial “A” word immediately. The Berthoud lawmaker asserted that Boyd’s bill uses circular logic that “[contraception] is not abortive” — arguing instead that birth control “terminates” the fertilized egg between the moment of conception and implantation.

Except, obstetric and gynecological experts report that from 60 to 80 percent of fertilized eggs fail to implant naturally, completely outside the use of contraceptives. Likewise, there is no scientific test to detect pregnancy at conception until weeks after the egg implants in the uterus.

During the debate, Lundberg claimed only a small handful of other states use what he termed the “convenient,” “not unanimous” and “scientifically inaccurate” definition of pregnancy rather than the conservative Christian construct of conception. In fact, Missouri is the only state that has codified “life begins at conception” in its state constitution.

Despite their protests, Harvey and Lundberg are using a widely repudiated conservative religious frame that hormonal and device contraceptives cause abortion. That same tactic was initially voiced by proponents of the so-called “Personhood Amendment” that sought to confer constitutional rights on fertilized eggs on the 2008 state ballot. That early semantic stumble was quickly backburnered by the personhood campaign after it became apparent that Colorado’s majority pro-reproductive choice electorate was in no mood for a referendum on contraception let alone an all out anti-abortion fight.

Although Amendment 48 was soundly defeated by a 3-to-1 margin, Boyd’s bill seeks to thwart continued states rights-fueled challenges to Roe vs Wade by anti-abortion activists.

“It’s a very simple bill actually,” Boyd told the Colorado Independent moments before she introduced the legislation to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee last week. “It keeps contraceptives out of the [personhood] argument … I think we’re clearly stating what contraception is and when you talk about preventing pregnancy that in no way is abortion. This is designed to prevent the potential need for anyone to seek an abortion.”

Lundberg and fellow ultra-conservative caucus members Dave Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs, and Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield, panned the measure in committee but were defeated on a 5-3 party line roll call vote. Schultheis was pilloried after a Feb. 25 Senate floor discussion on SB 179 for remarking that HIV testing of pregnant women rewards promiscuity. He held his tongue during the committee debate on Boyd’s contraception bill the day after that firestorm.

At the behest of Gov. Bill Ritter and Catholic hospital representatives, Boyd offered an amendment to her own bill to exclude mifespristone, also known as RU-486, and other federally approved pharmaceuticals that induce abortion from the proposed legal definition of contraception.

Harvey’s amendment was ultimately beat back by Boyd with a title ruling request, a legal maneuver to determine whether the challenge has merit as a modification of the bill in question or goes too far afield from the subject at hand. Legislative legal services ruled that Harvey’s claim didn’t stand the test.

The bill passed on a voice vote and goes to third reading in the Senate Thursday where, if approved, will move to the House to be shepherded by co-sponsor Rep. Anne McGihon, D-Denver.

AP reports that the measure’s sponsor, North Dakota Rep. Dan Ruby, R-Minot, denies the legislation will ban abortion, a long-held and as yet unsuccessful aim in previous legislative sessions.

Bismark CBS affiliate KXMB broadcast snippets of the House debate where the true goal of the law — challenging Roe v. Wade — was made public.

Opponents of the tactic argue that the proposed law’s overly broad language could also outlaw reproductive health care, contraception, in vitro fertilization and stem cell research that involves fertilized eggs.

A statement from the bill’s proponents echo a blast from Colorado’s not-so-distant election cycle past:

“Personhood USA applauds the leadership and support that the North Dakota Life League and North Dakota Family Alliance have shown to make this victory happen,” stated Keith Mason of Personhood USA. He continued, “We thank Rep. Dan Ruby for his courage and for being actively pro-life. This great family man with his wife and 10 children are an example to us all.”

“North Dakotans have gotten used to cold temperatures like -44 degrees, but they haven’t gotten used to child-killing. We applaud and support their efforts to protect every baby by love and by law,” commented Cal Zastrow, who, along with his family, worked on the North Dakota bill at the grassroots level.

Mason, from Wichita, Kan., was best known as an Operation Rescue “truth truck” driver before signing on to the Colorado for Equal Rights push that attempted to add the anti-abortion language to Colorado’s Constitution in 2008. He and Michigan resident Zastrow formed Personhood USA after their efforts to help pass Amendment 48 went down in a crushing 73-27 defeat. The pair now refer to themselves as “missionaries to the pre-born.”