Despite a crushing defeat at the ballot box in Colorado on Tuesday, supporters of Amendment 48, the so-called “Personhood” Amendment, aren’t “taking the loss personally,” and have launched plans to take the fight to 16 more states, according to an anti-abortion news site and a Web site established by the group. The measure would have defined a fertilized egg as a person. It was widely seen as an end run around Roe v. Wade in an attempt to outlaw abortion, but opponents said it would also ban most forms of contraception.
Organizers of Personhood USA plan to mount campaigns to put the same amendment before voters wherever citizens can initiate petitions. Even though Colorado voters rejected Amendment 48 by a 3-1 margin, Personhood USA founder Cal Zastrow told LifeNews.com, “we will continue to advocate for the pre-born regardless of polls or winning or losing elections.”
The Colorado ballot measure failed to garner support from some traditionally anti-abortion groups and staunchly anti-abortion candidates. With 98 percent of precincts reporting, the initiative failed 1,598,069 to 584,085 votes, or 73 percent to 27 percent.
Keith Mason, a spokesman and petition coordinator for Coloradans for Equal Rights — the group that pushed Amendment 48 in Colorado — told LifeNews.com the new group plans to put the measure on state ballots “over and over again” until they succeed. “If we fail to get enough votes to affirm personhood, we will use it as a baseline and try again, educating while we do, and keep trying until we succeed,” he said.
The group launched a Web site, PersonhoodUSA.com, with links seeking “Personhood Advocates” in 16 states — Nebraska, Ohio, Mississippi, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Missouri, Michigan, Arizona, California, North Dakota, South Dakota, Arkansas, Florida and Oklahoma — along with detailed timelines for placing amendments on ballots. “Together,” the site proclaims, “we will glorify Jesus and then stop the dehumanizing of and destruction of preborn people.”
Here’s the video greeting visitors to the site:
PUSA Promo (Web) from Endfallow on Vimeo
“Personhood has changed the abortion debate. Now we are asking, ‘When does human life begin?’ The opposition can not and will not answer this question, but we can. And when we answer that question, we win,” Mason told LifeNews.com.
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