Boulder Weekly on Amendment 48

The Boulder Weekly just published a superb cover story on Amendment 48, the proposed constitutional amendment that would grant fertilized eggs all the legal rights of persons. It begins with three gripping stories:

A young woman arrives in the emergency room with pelvic pain and heavy bleeding. A doctor examines her and realizes the woman is in the midst of miscarriage. Rather than focusing on her treatment, however, the doctor calls in a specialist -- a forensic gynecologist -- who will examine the young woman whether she consents or not in order to determine whether the miscarriage was natural or whether her uterus is a crime scene.

A couple who thought they were expecting a baby rush to the hospital, the wife doubled over in agony. An ultrasound shows that the fetus isn't in her uterus, but is implanted in one of her fallopian tubes. The pregnancy is doomed, and the woman's life is in very real danger. Rather than terminating the pregnancy immediately, however, doctors admit the wife and let her wait out the agony, watching for the fetus's heart to stop beating -- or for the wife's fallopian tube to rupture. Then they will have no choice but to operate if they hope to save the wife's life.

A college student moves to Boulder to attend the University of Colorado. She heads to the pharmacy to pick up her month's supply of birth-control pills, only to have her prescription seized by the pharmacist, who apologetically informs her that all kinds of hormonal contraception are now illegal in this state.

Welcome to the new world of Amendment 48.

Read the whole thing.