Abortion as a Political Football

My husband, Dr. Paul Hsieh of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine at www.WeStandFIRM.org, recently published an op-ed in the Denver Post on how government welfare and controls in medicine transform controversial procedures from personal decisions into political footballs.

As we've seen clearly of late, that's a huge problem with abortion -- and that's one reason why I'm so disappointed that the most prominent advocates of abortion rights (such as Planned Parenthood and NARAL) supported the recent health care reform bill.

Advocates of abortion rights must learn that they cannot protect a woman's right to choose without advocating markets free of government controls and welfare.

Here is his op-ed:

Turning medicine into political football
Paul Hsieh; Denver Post, 03/24/2010

During President Obama's final push for "universal health care" legislation, his biggest obstacle was not Republicans but rather anti-abortion Democrats let by Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Michigan).

Stupak eventually reached a last-minute deal with the White House on federal funding of abortion services. But no one should be surprised that under government-controlled health insurance, medical coverage decisions will be based on political considerations. Rather, the recent wrangling over abortion will be a mere preview of special-interest battles to come as health care becomes a permanent political football.

Abortion has already been a political football in those sectors of health insurance under government control. In 1985, the Department of Defense denied abortion coverage for women with military health insurance unless the mother's life was in danger. In 1988, the DOD issued additional rules prohibiting women from obtaining abortions with their own private money at military facilities overseas. President Clinton reversed this ban in 1993, but anti-abortion lawmakers reinstated it in 1995 through the defense appropriations bill.

Women covered by the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) have been similarly affected. Over the past thirty years, their abortion coverage has also swung from permitted to highly restricted depending on which political party was in power.

Nor will the problem of politicized health benefits be confined to abortion. ObamaCare gives the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) the authority to determine which preventive health services must be covered by private insurance. The USPSTF is the same group that recently issued controversial guidelines recommending that screening mammography be restricted to women over age 50, despite the fact that medical organizations such as the American Cancer Society have long recommended routine mammography beginning at age 40, based on years of scientific research.

Due to public outrage, the Senate later amended its bill to override the USPSTF guidelines — in this particular case. As with abortions for military families, mammography coverage under government-controlled health insurance was determined primarily by politics and lobbying. Similar lobbying will occur as Americans start demanding coverage for other procedures not approved by the USPSTF, such as virtual colonography (a new method of detecting early colon cancer which President Obama himself recently underwent).

Such lobbying is already a constant feature under the Massachusetts system of mandatory insurance in place since 2006, which was the model for ObamaCare. Under any system of mandatory insurance, the government must necessarily determine what constitutes an "acceptable" policy. This creates a giant magnet for special interest groups seeking to include their favorite benefit in the mandatory package.

Massachusetts residents must therefore purchase numerous benefits they may neither need nor want, such as in vitro fertilization and chiropractor services. Since 2006, special interest groups have successfully lobbied to include 16 new benefits in the mandatory package (including lay midwives, orthotics, and drug abuse treatment) — and the state legislature is considering 70 more.

Although I am pro-choice on abortion, abortion opponents should not be forced to fund another woman's abortion. More broadly, individuals have the right to spend their own money for their benefit according to their values. ObamaCare would violate that right by forcing each person to spend his own money on terms set by lobbyists and bureaucrats, rather than based on his individual needs and values.

Instead of politically-controlled mandatory health insurance, we need free-market reforms that allow consumers to decide which benefits they wish to purchase. Such reforms include eliminating mandatory benefits, allowing insurers to compete across state lines, and allowing patients to use Health Savings Accounts for routine expenses, and low-cost "catastrophic-only" plans to cover rare expensive events.

Not only would these reforms reduce insurance costs by up to 50 percent, they would respect each individual's right to make insurance decisions for himself.

Government-controlled health insurance will mean politically-controlled medicine — not only with respect to abortion but for health services in general. ObamaCare will turn medicine into a game of permanent political football, where the politically favored perpetually pound ordinary Americans without special "pull." Until we replace ObamaCare with free-market reforms, Americans had better get used to being the permanent tackling dummies for special-interest groups.

Paul Hsieh, M.D., is co-founder of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine at www.WeStandFIRM.org. He practices medicine in the south Denver metro area.

Read more...

Republicans Endorse Absurd 'Personhood' Measure

[From Ari Armstrong's blog:] Colorado Republicans better hope the Secretary of State finds that the "personhood" supporters -- those who want to define a fertilized egg as a person will full legal rights -- don't have enough signatures for the ballot, after all.

Personhood Colorado announced today:

Personhood Colorado, sponsors of the 2010 Personhood Amendment, today submitted 46,671 signatures to the Colorado Secretary of State's office.

On March 4, the Colorado Secretary of State disclosed that 20.63% of the 79,648 signatures submitted by Personhood Colorado were invalid. As allowed by Colorado law, volunteers then had 15 days to replace the invalid signatures with new, valid voter signatures. That translated to over 1,000 signatures per day.

The Huffington Post also reports the story.

For a comprehensive explanation for why the measure is wrong in theory and horrifying in practice, see the paper on the 2008 version of the measure by Diana Hsieh and me. In brief, the measure if fully implemented would outlaw practically all abortions, even in cases of rape, incest, fetal deformity, and risk to the woman's health; outlaw common forms of birth control including the pill; and outlaw most fertility treatments involving egg implantation.

Even more disturbing, many Colorado Republicans have endorsed the measure. I already knew that underdog candidate for governor, Dan Maes, endorsed it, though he seems confused by some of the measure's implications.

Today I learned from the Christian Family Alliance of Colorado that Ken Buck -- a strong challenger for U.S. Senate -- and both Cory Gardner and Tom Lucero -- who are trying to upset Betsy Markey in the Fourth Congressional -- have also endorsed the measure.

I want to make something clear at the outset, just so no Republicans are surprised later on: I will vote against any candidate who endorses the monstrous "personhood" measure. That is, I will not abstain from voting, I will vote for the Democrat, as my strongest available statement.

Of course, there is still time for any candidate who has endorsed the measure to repent, confess the error of his or her ways, and articulate a position closer to sanity.

Did Republicans somehow fail to notice that the 2008 "personhood" measure got trounced, and overall voters responded negatively to the faith-based politics of the GOP?

Of course, 2010 is a new election cycle, and voters may be so utterly disgusted with the Democrats' handling of the economy that they may vote Republican, regardless of what loons the GOP throws up.

Betsy Markey, for example, has said she plans to vote for the disgusting Democratic health bill, giving me the impression that she has already resigned to losing. (I'm not in Markey's district, thankfully, so I won't have to hold my nose and vote for her, assuming her opponents stick with their foolish endorsements of "personhood.")

Likewise, I don't think either Michael Bennet or Andrew Romanoff can keep the U.S. Senate seat for the Dems, regardless of who the opponent is. Those two are hard-left Denver Democrats, and they've had to run further left in the primary. Still, it could become a tough race, and "personhood" offers rich ground for effective attack ads. (So far as I can determine, Jane Norton, still the most likely candidate, has remained silent on the "personhood" issue.)

In the governor's race, John Hickenlooper is avoiding a primary and trumpeting his pro-business sentiments and credentials. I think Hickenlooper will be pretty tough to beat. Like Norton, frontrunner Scott McInnis has (so far as I can tell) remained silent on "personhood," but he has tried to toe the anti-abortion line, so the appearance of the "personhood" measure on the ballot could still hurt him significantly. If the measure indeed makes the ballot, voters will be continually reminded about the ultimate aims of the anti-abortion zealots and the severe harms their laws would impose.

Do I despise Democrats or Republicans more? As today's political news illustrates, that depends entirely on which party I'm thinking of at a given moment.

Read more...

Shari'a Law in the West?!

It is difficult to find exact statistics on the numbers of Muslims immigrating to the West from all over the world. I can tell you that in the apartments next door to me there are scores of North African Islamic families, the women wearing traditional head-to-toe cover-up, the families attending the mosque down my street.

But a disturbing fact is emerging: many leaders in immigrant Muslim communities want to pass laws in their new home countries creating a parallel legal system of Shari'a law based on Islamic religious and tribal traditions alongside Western law, which of course is based generally on secular Constitutional principles of individual rights.

The AHA Foundation Exposes Abusive Islamic Practices

This information came to my attention from an organization called the AHA Foundation, which was started in 2007 by the extraordinary Ayaan Hirsi Ali. As I described in my review of her book Infidel, published in the March 2008 edition of American Atheist, Ms. Hirsi Ali escaped a repressive and tortuous Islamic-tribal upbringing in Somalia, refused an arranged marriage, renounced Islam, escaped to Holland, educated herself about Western ideals, and got elected member of Dutch Parliament. She is now a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and an activist against the repressive anti-human-rights practices of Islam.

The mission of the AHA Foundation is to:

• Investigate acts of violence against females in the West in the name of Islam;
  
• Inform relevant law enforcement, courts, political leaders, journalists, writers, child protection groups, community and civil rights organizations that are active in dealing with domestic violence and in protecting the rights of women and children;
  
• Influence policy makers against introducing Shari'a law as a legitimate alternative legal system in the West.

The Misogynistic Practices of Shari'a Law

Many in the Muslim world claim Shari'a law does not come from the Koran. But the more fundamentalist and tribal sects of Islamic immigrants want to import laws that have been interwoven for centuries into their cultural traditions. These barbaric practices overwhelmingly violate the individual rights of females. I often wonder what goes on in the homes of my North African Muslim neighbors.

From the AHA Foundation website, these laws include (I have edited the information for brevity):

• Child Brides: minors married off to older men.
  
• Forced or "Arranged" Marriages: A girl's resistance to this marriage often leads to severe beatings or an "honor" killing.
  
• Forbidden Divorces: Women who seek divorce from abusive husbands find they are obstructed by not only their husbands but their fathers, brothers and in-laws, preventing them from seeking or obtaining a divorce. Many of these women often become victims of beatings or honor killings.
  
• Loss of Child Custody by the Mother: In many divorce cases the mother is no longer allowed to have custody of her child older than seven. Many western ex-wives of Muslim men find themselves in this position.
  
• Guardianship: A woman must always have a male guardian from whom she needs permission for all her activities. This ranges from asking permission to leave the house to seeking permission to sign contracts, accept jobs, etc. This concept applies to all women, and the legal age of maturity in the West is not recognized.
  
• House Arrest: Girls and women who are seen to be too liberal or westernized are forbidden to go out of the house without a male escort; resistance to this often leads to punishment or even an "honor" killing.
  
• Domestic Slaves: Girls as young as 10 or 11 years who work as housemaids as unpaid domestic slaves. These girls do not go to school. They are often orphans, and their only family often consists of relatives who abuse them. Sometimes they are illegal immigrants.
  
• Female Genital Mutilation: This horrific, ultimate example of sexual torture is a world-wide, culturally-sanctioned practice inflicted upon girls between the ages of 4 and 14. Many Muslims argue that the practice has nothing to do with Islam. Female genital mutilation is not in the Koran, but it is included in a Hadith (a saying of the prophet). The fact is, in the West, Muslim communities are almost the only ones that practice it. It is to ensure virginity until the girl's wedding day. The ritual may not be Islamic per se, but it serves the Islamic purpose of ensuring that a girl remains a virgin till she is married.
  
• Polygamy: Polygamy is a part of Shari'a law. Those men who practice it may have one civil marriage and, in addition, two or three Shari'a marriages. In the UK, a number of these polygamous marriages are "legally recognized."
  
• Honor Beatings: This is a beating of a girl or a woman for refusing to comply with the family code of honor and engaging in behavior deemed by the family to be shameful. Ignoring the rules of house-arrest; resisting a forced marriage; seeking a divorce; dating; dressing in western attire; wearing make-up; or simply taking non-Muslims as friends; these and a whole series of activities are seen as an invitation to be beaten. The beatings are intended to be corrective. If the girl complies, normally punishment ceases.
  
• Honor Killings: Honor-killings are mostly pre-meditated and are often carried out with the knowledge and help of family members and other relatives. When the corrective beatings fail to dissuade a girl/woman from complying with the wishes of her family or giving up the behavior they consider shameful, the family may conclude that the only way they can regain the 'honor' lost through the girl's 'shameful' behavior is to kill her. The plotting can take days, weeks, months and even years.
  
• Deportations/Kidnapping: Some families or husbands will not go so far as to kill a disobedient daughter or wife. Instead they trick her into going back 'home' (native country) on vacation; then they confiscate her passport and force her into marriage or whatever it is they want her to do. Some families prefer to take a disobedient girl to the country of origin and kill her there, as they can escape punishment for the murder or get a low prison sentence for their action.

It is most noteworthy that Ayaan Hirsi Ali suffered most of these crimes during her life before escaping to the West, including genital mutilation at about the age of nine. What is most shocking and demoralizing is that the women themselves enable the perpetuation of this abuse in their communities, obviously out of fear and lack of power. I call this "Stockholm Syndrome" on a society-wide scale.

Islamic Fundamentalists in the West Push for Shari'a Law

If you think these laws from the Dark Ages aren't invading the West, think again. As one example, in Britain in 2008, Shari'a law has been upheld under a legal maneuver called "arbitration."

Other western countries -- including Canada and the United States -- are being intimidated by certain Islamic leaders to follow suit and have Shari'a law legally enforceable.

The AHA foundation presents a detailed report of specific examples in the West where these practices have in fact occurred.

In No Way Should Shari'a Law Be Allowed to Infect the West

These Muslim communities must not be allowed to create a parallel set of barbaric laws under some Western rationalization of respecting "multiculturalism." A society built upon ideals of upholding individual rights must not enable morally heinous laws that legalize the abuse, sexual torture, or murder of women and girls in the name of religious/cultural practices.

Anyone forcing their daughter to marry an uncle 50 years her senior; tribal women participating in a ritual to mutilate a girl's genitalia; male relatives physically assaulting a girl for wearing jeans; families enslaving a girl to be their housekeeper -- these people should be arrested, prosecuted, and jailed according to U.S. law.

We must fight hard as a culture to preserve the historic greatness embodied in the ideals of American individual rights and freedoms, and not decay into a decrepit mishmash of religious and tribal ritualism.

Read more...

Colorado Amazon Affiliates

I've been frantically busy this week with attempting to undo some major tax damage done by Colorado's Democratic legislature and governor. This post is off-topic for CSG, but the issue is too important to ignore.

Due to a horrible new law (HB 1193) recently passed in Colorado, Amazon terminated all of its "Amazon Associates" accounts in Colorado. (Amazon Associates is an affiliate program: members earn a small commission on Amazon sales via their links.)

I'm a Colorado Amazon Associate -- or I was. I'm sickened by the whole fiasco. In an instant, the new law meant that so much of my past work was wasted and so many of my future plans were derailed.

Many on the left blame Amazon, but that's not fair in the slightest. The Colorado government -- our legislators and governor -- created this mess by its imposition of an "Amazon Tax" with HB 1193. Given its Colorado-based affiliates, that law would have crippled Amazon with an onerous and expensive confusion of red tape, plus a crazy patchwork of local taxes. The only way for Amazon to extricate itself from that nightmare was to terminate the Affiliate Program.

If you're interested in this issue, read my blog post, Colorado Screws Amazon and Its Affiliates, as well as Ari Armstrong's lengthy analysis, Stop the "Amazon Tax"!.

I've also created a super-quick web site, to be expanded and updated soon: RepealTheAmazonTax.com. If you want to help pressure the Colorado legislature to repeal this awful law, please join the low-volume e-mail list, NoAmazonTax @ GoogleGroups.

And please, spread the word!

Read more...

The Separation of Church and State

I want to strongly recommend this recently-released lecture by Onkar Ghate on "The Separation of Church and State," given at OCON in 2009. It was particularly stellar.

The Separation of Church and State
By Onkar Ghate

With religion on the rise in America, maintaining the separation of church and state is now a pressing issue. This talk begins with an examination of the contemporary debate about the principle of separating religion from government. Dr. Ghate argues that both sides of the contemporary debate are mistaken and explains why today even most well-meaning Americans are unable to mount a tenable defense of the principle. To understand what the principle actually means, Dr. Ghate then considers some of the history behind the principle, focusing on John Locke's crucial contributions. Finally, Dr. Ghate sketches what a full philosophical argument for the separation of church and state looks like.

(86 min., with Q & A)

Audio CD; 2-CD set: $20.95

For an understanding of the philosophic foundation of the secular government, including the problems with the standard attacks on and defenses thereof, you won't find anything better. Most people in the audience were surprised and delighted by the discussion of John Locke on faith. I wasn't surprised, but I was delighted! I've always taught a class on "Faith and Reason" in my Introduction to Philosophy courses, and Locke is undoubtedly the highlight. While he defends faith, his defense is such that faith cannot sustain any foothold in cognition. (Locke is far, far better than Thomas Aquinas on this issue... but that's a subject for a future podcast.)

Read more...

The Roots of Political Freedom

Political freedom requires valuing each person's life and happiness on this earth as an end in itself -- not merely as a means to secure some unknown afterlife.

Political freedom requires respect for the authority of each person's rational judgment -- not deference to the supposed commands of God and his earthly representatives.

Political freedom requires justice in dealings with others -- not conformity to arbitrary rules and commands of scripture.

Political freedom requires people to make their own way in the world by their own efforts -- not dependence on favors granted by God for abject pleading.

Political freedom requires regarding other people as innocent until proven guilty -- not as sinful by nature.

Political freedom requires taking life on this earth seriously -- not regarding it as a trial run for the next life.

Religion cannot be a foundation for political freedom. If mankind were a mass of wretched, sinful, unworthy servants seeking the bliss of the afterlife, with almighty God presiding over them as absolute lord, then religious dictatorship would be the only proper political system. Thankfully, that's not the case.

So if you think that freedom is a Christian value, think again.

Read more...

Conservative Deceit about Christian Liberty

[From Ari Armstrong's blog:] Some of my fellow Coloradans wish to outlaw the birth control pill and subject my wife to the death penalty if she takes it, yet today David Limbaugh dismisses as "paranoia" concerns about "the intersection of Christianity and the public square." Limbaugh is amazed by "how much [critics] fear something that represents such a little threat to them."

Let us review, shall we? Many Christians in the United States advocate the following political goals:

• Outlaw all abortion, even in cases of rape, incest, fetal deformity, and risk to the woman's health, from the moment of fertilization, with criminal penalties extending to execution.
  
  
• Outlaw all fertility treatments, birth control (including the pill), medical research, and medical treatment that may involve the destruction of a fertilized egg.
  
  
• Impose mandatory waiting periods and ultrasounds before a woman may obtain an abortion. (This is a marginal step toward the goal of complete prohibition.)
  
  
• Outlaw all expression involving consenting adults that is arbitrarily deemed "obscene." (Various Christians want to outlaw all material deemed pornographic.)
  
  
• Force Americans to subsidize religious institutions for "faith based" welfare.
  
  
• Expand welfare (the forced redistribution of wealth) because of Biblical principles of helping the less-well off.
  
  
• Imprison American adults for consuming various drugs, including marijuana taken for medical purposes, regardless of the level of police powers necessary to achieve this goal. (Some Christians even want to return to alcohol prohibition.)
  
  
• Require religious prayer and religious instruction at tax-funded schools.
  
  
• Deny equal protection under the laws to homosexuals, including the right to form romantic contracts and adopt children.

A few Christians want to execute homosexuals and adulterers and explicitly call for theocracy (see Christian Reconstruction or the comments of a Christian radio host.)

No, nothing to worry about!

Limbaugh makes a couple of basic mistakes in his article. First, he pretends that the only relevant issue is freedom of expression. Second, he pretends that the only debate is between "the left" and Christian conservatives. Obviously the left with its campaign censorship laws and media controls at least matches conservative Christianity in its hostility toward free expression. Unfortunately, as seen with President Obama's expansion of President Bush's "faith based" welfare, the left increasingly mingles politics with religion as well.

True, many Christians fight for liberty in at least some areas. Whether that effort flows from Christian doctrine, or is ultimately incompatible with it, is a debate for another day. But for Limbaugh to dismiss as "paranoia" concerns about the efforts of many Christians to base politics on religion is ludicrous.

Read more...

Obama's "We Are the World" Atruism Is Not Just Good Christian Works

In my last post, Obama's Black Liberation Theology: Rescuing the World, Paul Hsieh asked:

Do you know how much of this global altruism also took place under white liberals (such as President Clinton), or under a white Christian Republican (like President Bush)? In particular, is President Obama's pursuit of this kind of "save the world" altruism significantly greater under his presumed guiding philosophy Black Liberation Theology than with those other Presidents?

Thanks for your question, Paul. I believe that it is driven by different values. To answer it in depth would be beyond the scope of this blog. But I think a couple of key examples will elucidate the underlying altruistic positions of Clinton, Bush, and a representative service-oriented global Christian organization, contrasted with Black Liberation Theology's teaching about America's global responsibility.

As most know, former Presidents Bush and Clinton partnered to form the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. The purpose of the charitable organization is much the same as what Obama sold to America (with American tax dollars):

To help the Haitian people reclaim their country and rebuild their lives. Our immediate priority is to save lives. The critical needs in Haiti are great, but they are also simple: food, water, shelter, and first-aid supplies. The best way concerned citizens can help is to donate funds that will go directly to supplying these material needs....There is no greater rallying cry for our common humanity than witnessing our neighbors in distress. And, like any good neighbor, we have an obligation and desire to come to their aid.

The William J. Clinton Foundation is Clinton's philanthropic organization focusing "on worldwide issues that demand urgent action, solutions, and measurable results -- global climate change, HIV/AIDS in the developing world, childhood obesity and economic opportunity in the United States, and economic development in Africa and Latin America."

In his video on the website, Clinton directly states what his global values are. He speaks about "our common humanity," that we live in an "interdependent world ... with shared values, responsibilities and benefits ... where everybody counts, where everybody deserves a chance, where everybody has a responsibility to fulfill ... We all do better when we work together. Our differences do matter, but our common humanity matters more."

George W. Bush's altruism was best exemplified by his "compassionate conservatism":

Government cannot solve every problem, but it can encourage people and communities to help themselves and to help one another. Often the truest kind of compassion is to help citizens build lives of their own. I call my philosophy and approach "compassionate conservatism." It is compassionate to actively help our fellow citizens in need. It is conservative to insist on responsibility and on results. And with this hopeful approach, we can make a real difference in people's lives. (April 2002)

The World Council of Churches, a worldwide community of more than 340 Christian churches of many different denominations serves to "speak out with a strong voice to promote peace, justice and care for God's creation." Also, to help "churches join hands to serve people forgotten in today's world."

Enough on these altruists.

Black Liberation Theology, on the other hand, doesn't try to sell emotion-provoking exhortations about our "common humanity," "making a difference in people's lives," "shared responsibility" or "service."

It is out for revenge. It is out for "justice."

James Cone, the founder of Black Liberation Theology, said:

What does black theology have to say about the fact that two-thirds of humanity is poor and that this poverty arises from the exploitation of the poor nations by rich nations? ... Thus, in our attempt to liberate ourselves from white America in the U.S., it is important to be sensitive to the complexity of the world situation and the oppressive role of the U.S. in it.

Obama's former pastor for 20 years, Jeremiah Wright, excoriated the U.S. for what his calls a "terrorist" foreign policy in a speech responding to the September 11 attacks.

Black Liberation Theologian Dwight Hopkins explains that global welfare is a form of "justice" in response to the alleged egregious crimes of American capitalism:

[T]he past rise of capitalism and its existence today suggest a fact of capital accumulation by ruling-class families of the globe (primarily based in the United States and Europe) who keep their monopoly over God's resources by taking capital from people of color and the Third World. Injustice against God comes from monopolized capital, which is stolen from blacks, other people of color, and Third World nations ... [We must] return God's capital and resources back to the poor (i.e., the majority world community)...

You might find this kind of preposterous bombast from modern Marxists and other anti-American "liberationists," but not from "common humanitarians" like Clinton, "compassionate conservatives" like Bush, or world-wide organizations of Christians doing the good works of Jesus.

Obama came of spiritual age in the Black Liberation Church. He is a proven enemy of capitalism. His priorities for global welfare were set very high at the first opportunity. He surrounds himself with spiritual advisers from the Black Liberation community (as well as a couple of garden variety Christian liberals).

So, my answer is basically "Yes." Obama's global welfare is about what Black Liberation Theology says is a justifiable duty America has to the rest of the world.

Read more...

Obama's Black Liberation Theology: Rescuing the World

As we know, President Obama is a religious leftist, and I have argued that his brand of religious leftism is the more radical anti-American Black Liberation Theology, the religion under which he came of spiritual age and nurtured for over 20 years before it became politically strategic for him to break public ties with it during the presidential race.

Obama's religion and policies are class-oriented, anti-capitalist, and egalitarian. I have covered some of this in previous posts. Today I focus on another tenant of Black Liberation Theology: to serve the oppressed all over the world. James Cone (the founder of Black Liberation Theology) says, Black Liberation Theology should be "concerned with the quality of human life not only in the ghettos of American cities but also in Africa, Asia, and Latin America... [T]here will be no freedom for anyone until there is freedom for all."

Then in January, "God" rattled the earth under Haiti, creating a devastating earthquake and the perfect opportunity for Obama to pour his heart out to the suffering people of this poorest country in the hemisphere. In his essay in Newsweek, entitled "Why Haiti Matters", Obama justifies his response:

When we show not just our power, but also our compassion, the world looks to us with a mixture of awe and admiration. That advances our leadership. That shows the character of our country. And it is why every American can look at this relief effort with the pride of knowing that America is acting on behalf of our common humanity.

Hello?! What about that individual's "Pursuit of Happiness" business that is the backbone of our Constitutional principles?

This effort to salvage Haiti -- a chronically corrupt failed state addicted to the regular injections of American and international aid and perpetually suffering disasters worse than its crushing endemic misery -- is a futile and wasteful and anti-American undertaking.

Obama has given Haiti 12,000 of our brave American military personnel to the cause -- an amount that is over 40% of the number sent as the surge in Afghanistan, a front for the biggest threat to America: Islamic Totalitarianism!

Obama has mobilized a team of our key officials "to discuss ongoing relief efforts": Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, Secretary of Health and Human Services, U.S. Ambassador to the UN, FEMA, wide-ranging staff of the Department of Homeland Security, USAID, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

That doesn't even include coordinating the broad international relief effort, providing a US Naval Hospital ship, military and government aircraft, Coast Guard vessels, food and water, more cash.

How can any rational American leader even conceive that "rescuing" a hopeless beggar nation justifies ordering the costly diversion of our governmental resources and security infrastructure? These institutions should not be diverted from focusing on legitimate threats to the very survival of America: the Iranian goal of building nuclear weapons, the Iranian-inspired infestation and spreading epidemic of Islamic Totalitarianism, the ongoing game-playing and extortion of resources by North Korea in its quest for nuclear weapons, the serious issue of European debt and its threat to global security, etc., etc.

But to Obama, "lead(ing) the world in this humanitarian endeavor" is at least as equally important as protecting America from the most insidious threats to our freedom and even existence. Such is the illogic of our liberation-minded President.

This President's philosophy of Black Liberation Theology is a driving force for all of his major policy initiatives. He will community-organize the United States right in to a socialist state with the altruistic mission of sacrificing America for whatever neediness is out there--in the spirit of Black Liberation Theology "justice." In my view, Obama's presidency is defined by violations of the separation of church and state.

Read more...

Suffering and Euthanasia

William Stoddard recently defended the practice of euthanasia on this NoodleFood thread. Most poignant was this comment:

A few weeks ago, our older cat's kidneys stopped working. She was 18 years old, had recovered fully from breast cancer through surgery and chemo, and had later been diagnoses with stomach cancer and given an estimated lifespan in months . . . three years before. She stopped eating and started losing weight; I made a vet appointment; and the night before I took her in, she started repeatedly drinking a lot and then immediately urinating (on the bathroom tile, which is why we knew it was repeated). The vets diagnosed her and told us that we might be able to prolong her life by hydrating her; I asked them to do it, so we could bring her home and observe her . . . and only hours after we had her home, we called back and made the appointment to have her euthanized. I don't want to go into details; let's just say that she was debilitated, uncomfortable, and rapidly losing body weight.

We both cried buckets as she died . . . but I hadn't a moment's doubt that it was the right thing to do for her. Nothing we could do would actually give her LIFE; all we could do was prolong her dying, and the suffering that went with it. Instead, we let her go, and she was still able to lift her head at the last, and respond when we petted her the last time. And I say that euthanizing her was an act of love, and that we never felt our love for her more, or acted on it with more integrity, than in those last moments.

Of course, a human being's death is different. A cat isn't a conceptual being, doesn't understand that it's mortal, and doesn't fear the shortening of its life; it only know its present suffering, and so ending that is an unmixed good. But I think it can be good for a human being, too, if continued existence is no more than a burden and a torment; because that makes the prospect of longer life not a good but a bad. There are circumstances under which I would choose to end my life; and I wish it were legal for my girlfriend to have that done for me, or I for her, if we are in those circumstances and helpless to end our own lives.

I don't think changing attitudes on this are a product of relativism. When I was a child in the 1950s, medicine was not far past being helpless to prolong the lives of the old and chronically ill; doctors still acted on the assumption that saving life was always a good thing, and families still expected them to. But now an entire generation has seen what that prolongation of life can mean, and has said, "Not for me."

Of course there need to be legal safeguards on this decision. But sometimes it's the right one to make.

Read more...

'Personhood' Measure May Lack Signatures

[From Ari Armstrong's blog:] The so-called "personhood" effort, which would ludicrously define a fertilized egg as a "person" with full legal rights, submitted signatures for the 2010 ballot on February 12. The number of valid signatures may fall short of the legally required minimum, and, should the Secretary of State declare as much, the group will have an additional fifteen days to try to close the gap.

I imagine no one in the state is happier about the measure's potential demise than Republican strategists, who are busily attempting to persuade voters that this year's election is about jobs, not the GOP's promiscuous relationship with the religious right.

I knew the effort was in trouble when, the day before the deadline, the Personhood CO web page announced the group still needed "hundreds of signatures" to make the ballot.

Keith Mason of Personhood USA put a happy face on the effort in a February 12 media release, completely ignoring the likely problem of invalid names. Mason announced, "The signatures submitted totaled 79,817, although only 76,047 were required." The release claims, "Once the signatures are verified by the Colorado Secretary of State, the amendment will be placed on the 2010 ballot and put to a vote."

Wendy Norris offers a more realistic assessment at RH [Reproductive Health] Reality Check:

Tyler Chafee, senior associate with RBI Strategies and Research, said, "There is very little chance that voters will be seeing this measure on the 2010 ballot."

State initiatives generally try to collect 30 percent more signatures than required to cover the expected names that are disqualified because they are not registered voters. Chafee predicts the latest attempt by anti-choice activists will fall about 13,000 signatures short. He based his estimate on the same signature approval rate, a relatively high 79 percent ratio, on the group's 2008 petitions. In that campaign, more than 131,000 names were submitted to the Colorado Secretary of State, almost double the required number and 50,000 more than this go-around.

Norris also explains what happens next:

Now, the secretary of state's office now has 30 days to verify that the petition signatures are from legally registered voters. ... Should the campaign come up short, proponents will have an additional 15 days to secure the remaining signatures needed.

But based on the daily signature gathering rate over the 172 days they circulated petitions through Friday's deadline, the group would have to get new names at twice that clip to reach the estimated 13,000 deficit within two weeks.

Aside from her wishy-washy comment that the measure "just goes too far," Amanda Mountjoy of the Republican Majority for Choice released an admirably strong condemnation of the proposal:

Today [February 12] marks a setback in our state's efforts to overcome the wave of big government intrusion and waste sweeping our nation. The problem with the "personhood" amendment lies in its fundamental contradiction. It poses as a measure designed to protect basic rights. In fact, personhood would violate the rights of Colorado women by granting competing rights to a fertilized egg, and would put government smack dab in the middle of medical decisions ranging from birth control, to in-vitro fertilization, to miscarriages, and abortion.

As Republicans, we cannot sit by while single-issue fundamentalists dramatically change our state constitution. We are already disheartened over the creation of new big government bureaucracies in Washington, DC. We will not allow those same intrusions to take hold in our state and hand over government control on such private decisions.

The media coverage of the measure reveals a great deal about the motives of its supporters. I will write a subsequent post about that. For now, though, I hold out hope that the measure won't make the ballot. I have plenty of battles to fight already!

For background, see the paper on the 2008 measure:
Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters That a Fertilized Egg Is Not a Person

Read more...

What Are the Implications of 'Personhood?'

If fully implemented, the so-called "personhood" measure that may again appear on Colorado's ballot to define a fertilized egg as a person will outlaw all or almost all abortions, excepting procedures necessary to save the life of the woman. On that point advocates and critics of the measure agree. More contentious are claims about the measure's impact on birth control, fertility treatments, and legal issues surrounding miscarriages and women's health.

Ironically, a document from PersonhoodCO (the organization supporting the measure), "Scare Tactic Alert", attacks straw men, ignores substantive criticism, and obscures key issues of the debate even as it promises to reveal the "outright lies" of critics and to give "truthful answers." However, the document does clearly reveal the intentions of the measure's supporters on a number of important points. It is worth reviewing to note both where it misleads and where it clarifies the positions of the measure's sponsors.

"It Will Ban Abortion"

The document says flatly of the measure: "It will ban abortion." If passed and implemented, it will ban all elective abortions. It will ban all abortions even in cases of rape, incest, and fetal deformity.

Embryonic Stem-Cell Research Will Be Banned

Under the "personhood" measure, any scientific research or medical procedure that involved the destruction of a fertilized egg (or embryo at any stage) would be outlawed, as the measure's sponsors loudly declare.

Abortion Will Be Deemed Murder

The document makes clear that, under the "personhood" measure, a woman will be criminally charged for getting an abortion. A woman will be charged with a crime if she "acted with criminal culpability which includes the performance of an act and a matching criminal intent. These standards would be the same as would be applied to any mother who harms her children, born or preborn."

The document confirms: "actions taken with criminal intent will be punished under the existing criminal code, irrespective of whether the child is in or out of the womb."

Abortion Could Trigger the Death Penalty

Not only would abortion be considered murder under the "personhood" measure, it could be punished with the death penalty. This applies both to doctors who perform abortions and women who get them.

The document denies that the measure "will threaten doctors who perform legitimate surgeries." However, a "legitimate" surgery, according to the document, cannot include any intention "to kill the child in the womb."

The document states: "In Colorado, the death penalty is only available for first degree murder with aggravating factors. First degree murder requires deliberation and intent."

While the document does not directly state that the death penalty could also apply to women who obtain abortions, the document states that women will be punished "under the existing criminal code." By implication, if a woman deliberately and intentionally aborts an embryo or fetus, she could be subject to the death penalty.

Colorado Statute 18-1.3-1201(1)(a) states, "Upon conviction of guilt of a defendant of a class 1 felony, the trial court shall conduct a separate sentencing hearing to determine whether the defendant should be sentenced to death or life imprisonment..."

Birth Control That Can Prevent Implantation Will be Outlawed

The "Scare Tactic Alert" document claims it is a "lie" that the measure "will ban contraception." However, the document also defines "contraception" strictly to mean something that prevents the fertilization of an egg. Any form of birth control that prevents a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus will be outlawed under the measure. Notably, this includes the birth control pill.

The document states: "the beginning of life (under normal sexual reproduction) takes place when the sperm touches the ovum. Barrier methods of contraception that prevent the union of the sperm and the egg will not be outlawed, since neither a sperm nor an egg by itself is a human being."

The birth control pill acts primarily as a contraceptive, in that it prevents the fertilization of an egg. However, according to the documentation distributed by the manufacturers of the birth control pill, it can also act to prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg.

For example, my wife takes TriNessa. According to WebMD, this birth control pill acts to "prevent pregnancy in 3 ways. One way is by preventing the release of an egg (ovulation). A second way is by changing the cervical mucus, making it more difficult for an egg to meet sperm (fertilization). A third way is by changing the womb lining, making it difficult for a fertilized egg to attach to the lining of the womb (implantation)."

Watson Pharmaceuticals, the producer of TriNessa, agrees that this pill can act to "reduce the likelihood of implantation."

As Diana Hsieh and I review in our paper on the subject (page 4), the birth control pill is more effective than condoms at preventing unwanted pregnancy. My wife and I find it to be the best form of birth control for us, and we utterly reject the insane claims of of the "personhood" advocates that using the birth control pill is morally wrong, much less the equivalent of murder that should subject women to severe criminal penalties.

Most Fertility Treatments Would Be Outlawed

PersonhoodCO claims it is a "lie" that the measure "will ban in vitro fertilization." However, as Diana and I explain in our paper, fertility treatments generally involve the destruction of fertilized eggs as a necessary aspect of effective treatment (see pages 6-7).

The "Scare Tactic Alert" document admits that fertility treatments that involve the destruction of fertilized eggs would be banned. The measure would, in effect, practically ban fertility treatments for nearly all women.

As Diana and I summarize, "[F]ertility clinics would be left with two options. They could fertilize one egg at a time, vastly raising the costs and time of the procedure because most eggs don't fertilize. Or they could implant all fertilized eggs into the woman, in some cases posing a health risk or producing more children than a couple can raise well. The practical result of Amendment 48 likely would be to shut down Colorado's seven reproductive clinics."

Doctors Would Be Subject to Prosecutorial Oversight

PersonhoodCO states, "[I]n those extremely rare situations where a woman needs treatment that might unintentionally result in the death of the child, the doctor would not have acted with intent to kill or even harm the child, but with intent to cure the mother." (Note here that PersonhoodCO is simply defining any procedure "where a woman needs treatment" as not counted as an "abortion.") Furthermore, when abortion was outlawed "there were no prosecutions of doctors for legitimate medical treatment," the document claims.

There are two main problems with these claims of PersonhoodCO. First, what counts as a "legitimate medical treatment" is precisely the issue in question. Now, who decides such matters is the woman in consultation with her doctor. Under the "personhood" measure, politicians, prosecutors, and judges will decide. Knowing this, doctors will tend to err on the side of not acting to protect a woman's health. If a doctor chooses not to take action in a difficult case, he will suffer no criminal penalty even if the woman dies. If the doctor chooses to act, he may be charged with murdering a zygote by a prosecutor who doubts the procedure was necessary.

Second, today doctors have much better equipment and procedures than they had several decades ago, so doctors today simply have more opportunities to medically intervene to protect a woman's health.

The broader issue is that doctors may effectively be prevented from acting in cases where "only" the woman's health, rather than her life, is at risk. By the logic of the "personhood" measure, a doctor should at least sometimes allow a woman to suffer long-term health consequences in order to save a zygote. The measure takes such determinations out of the hands of women and doctors and places them in the hands of government officials.

Suspicious Miscarriages Could Invite Prosecution

PersonhoodCO claims it is a "lie" that the measure "will threaten women who miscarry with criminal prosecution." The problem with that claim is that telling the difference between an unintentional miscarriage and an intentional act can be difficult. Who gets to decide whether a woman's diet, herbal remedies, or physical damage was intended to cause an abortion? Again, under the "personhood" measure, the answer is government officials, so far as prosecution is concerned.

The Abortion Industry?

One of the more dishonest claims made by PersonhoodCO is that criticisms are coming from "the abortion industry." No doubt clinics that perform abortions also oppose the measure. However, many independent critics, including Diana and me, are in no way a part of the "abortion industry," and PersonhoodCO's smears are childish and dishonest.

Diana and I wrote our paper, Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters That a Fertilized Egg Is Not a Person, without financial compensation. We wrote and promoted that paper because we are horrified by the vicious nature of the "personhood" measure.

Any reader of our paper will realize that PersonhoodCO is attacking straw men in its "Scare Tactic Alert." We do not, for example, claim that the measure "will ban contraception." Instead, we claim, as PersonhoodCO itself claims, that the measure will ban forms of birth control that may prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg.

Conclusion

At least the "Scare Tactic Alert" clearly lays out many of the intentions and implications of the "personhood" measure. Unfortunately, the document also smears critics of the measure, distorts what critics of the measure have said about it, ignores substantive criticism published in 2008, and understates the impacts of the measure in areas such as the potential for criminal prosecution in cases of suspicious miscarriages.

By implying that all criticisms of the "personhood" measure are "scare tactics," PersonhoodCO wrongly suggests that substantive criticisms of the measure have been exaggerated. Notably, not a single advocate of the "personhood" measure has attempted to directly refute anything from the 2008 paper.

Critics of the "personhood" measure do not need to resort to "scare tactics" to defeat it. The objective facts about the measure and its implications are truly horrifying.

Read more...

'Christian Soldiers' Seek Abortion Ban

[From Ari Armstrong's blog:] Anyone still unclear about the faith-based impetus of abortion bans should consider that, at a recent news conference, advocates of the so-called "personhood" measure broke out singing "Onward, Christian Soldiers" (as reported by the Denver Daily News). The proposal would grant full legal rights to fertilized eggs, banning abortion and any other action that could harm a zygote or embryo, with the possible exception of procedures to save a pregnant woman's life.

As I noted earlier today, the "personhood" measure seems to be in trouble, as the number of certified signatures will likely fall below the required minimum. As the News also points out, the number of signatures collected this year is nearly forty percent lower than the number collected in 2008. Wendy Norris notes that this year's news conference attracted only around twenty-five participants, a third of the 2008 showing. (Meanwhile, Norris reports, infighting has overtaken a national group supportive of the "personhood" drive.) While such internal struggles are good news to those favoring legal sanity and reproductive rights, the movement remains a potent threat, and one that must be fought on ideological grounds.

Obviously, the "personhood" movement is grounded in sectarian, religious faith. The purpose of the group is to impose sectarian beliefs by political force. (We will properly leave aside the fact that the Christian Bible does not actually demand abortion bans.)

Norris offers additional detail about the news conference. Gualberto Garcia Jones, one of the measure's main supporters, referred to advocates of the measure as an "army of faithful pro-life warriors." Leslie Hanks, another speaker at the conference, "thanked Focus on the Family Founder Dr. James Dobson." Hanks also recognized the Reverend Bob Enyart, who has advocated the death penalty for doctors and women who facilitate or obtain an abortion once the practice is outlawed (see page 16, note 1; see also Enyart's YouTube video on the matter, in which Enyart also advocates the death penalty for adultery).

As Westword reports, Keith Mason, spokesman for Personhood USA, has no intention of giving up: "we're going to keep fighting until we win."

Ironically, Personhood USA's own media release makes no mention of the group's faith-based roots. That did not cause Christian News Wire, "the nation's leading distributor of religious press releases," from suffering any confusion on the point.

Though the advocates of the measure clearly want to ban abortion because they believe such is the will of God, their formal arguments make scant reference to sectarian beliefs, for two reasons. First, the organizers want to potentially appeal to those of different worldviews, including other Christians who doubt their religion demands a ban on abortion. Second, the organizers are aware that strictly faith-based arguments likely would not withstand judicial scrutiny, which is why, for instance, advocates of "Intelligent Design" in tax-funded schools tried to distance their arguments from their sectarian origins.

Regardless of the motives behind the measure, its critics must defeat the arguments made in the proposal's favor, even when those arguments are merely pretext for a sectarian purpose.

Diana Hsieh and I thoroughly critiqued the "personhood" measure in our 2008 paper, Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters That a Fertilized Egg Is Not a Person. Here it is worth pointing out the textual change of the measure as well as some of the bad arguments that continue to be made in the proposal's favor.

The 2008 measure stated, "As used in sections 3, 6, and 25 of Article II of the state constitution, the terms 'person' or 'persons' shall include any human being from the moment of fertilization." Those other sections pertain to rights to life, liberty, property, equality of justice, and due process of law.

The 2010 proposal changes the language: "As used in sections 3, 6, and 25 of Article II of the state constitution, the term 'person' shall apply to every human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being."

Why the change? Mason explains to Westword:

The differences between this year's amendment and its 2008 predecessor "are minor," Mason concedes. "There's a slight change in the language. Now it says a person is a human being 'from the beginning of the biological development of that human being' in lieu of 'from the moment of fertilization.'"

He credits this change to Dianne Irving, a faculty member at Georgetown University: "She felt using the term 'biological beginning' was more inclusive and would include all babies -- even test tube babies. And that's our goal -- to protect every human."

In other words, the language was changed to make the measure even broader. Its advocates want the measure to do everything the 2008 language would have done, plus protect non-fertilized zygotes potentially created through cloning.

Ironically, though, the change in language could actually give the courts (so long as they are not overrun by religious zealots) license to interpret the measure less broadly, not more. The courts could define a "human being" as starting its "biological development" from birth. While the implications of the 2008 language were anything but clear, at least that language unambiguously referred to "fertilization." The new language is by one natural interpretation essentially a tautology: something is a human being from the moment it is a human being. But when something becomes a "human being" in the sense of personhood is precisely the issue in question.

This definitional problem points to a fundamental error made by those advocating the "personhood" measure. As Diana Hsieh and I wrote in 2008:

[T]he advocates of Amendment 48 depend on an equivocation on "human being" to make their case. A fertilized egg is human, in the sense that it contains human DNA. It is also a "being," in the sense that it is an entity. That's also true of a gallbladder: it is human and it is an entity. Yet that doesn't make your gallbladder a human person with the right to life. Similarly, the fact that an embryo is biologically a human entity is not grounds for claiming that it's a human person with a right to life. Calling a fertilized egg a "human being" is word-play intended to obscure the vast biological differences between a fertilized egg traveling down a woman's fallopian tube and a born infant sleeping in a crib. It is intended to obscure the fact that anti-abortion crusaders base their views on scripture and authority, not science.

No doubt the advocates of the proposal will seek to argue that "the beginning of the biological development of that human being" (normally) refers to the moment of fertilization. Those advocates have made it abundantly clear that their long-term goal is to elect sectarian politicians who will appoint sectarian judges who will interpret the "personhood" measure to grant full legal rights to fertilized eggs. In the meantime, however, if the "personhood" measure were passed, it would generate years of expensive and unresolved legal wars.

At least the advocates of the measure are clear that they do in fact want to ban abortion from the moment of conception. Garcia-Jones said, "The point of what we're trying to do, just for everyone who thinks we're trying to be sneaky, we're trying to end abortion." The group's web page states: "The goal is very simple, END ABORTION NOW by protecting all innocent human life from the beginning of biological development." The same page clearly counts fertilized eggs as "human beings."

Unfortunately, one consequence of the measure's language change will be to further confuse many voters about the intent and implications of the measure. While the advocates of the measure want to equate the moment of fertilization with the beginning of a human being, in the full sense of personhood with all the legal rights of a born infant, many voters will understandably think the measure means something else. If the measure were to pass and land in court, perhaps lawyers would drag in voters from 2010 to testify about the various interpretations given the measure.

Another variant of the group's equivocation is its use of the phrase, "preborn baby," invoked by Garcia-Jones in the group's recent media release. Ordinarily a "baby" means a born infant. However, often a pregnant woman will refer to her fetus as a "baby" as well. But merely using the same word to refer to a fertilized egg, a fetus, and a born infant does not make them equivalent. Again the advocates of the "personhood" measure rely on word games, rather than arguments, to "prove" that a fertilized egg should be granted the full legal rights of a born infant.

I'll have more to say about the claims of the "personhood" crusaders in a subsequent post. The critical point here is that the advocates of the "personhood" measure are motivated by sectarian faith, and they wish to impose their sectarian beliefs on the rest of us by political force. The non-sectarian arguments they offer are extremely weak, amounting to little more than word games intended to disguise the fundamentally sectarian nature of their cause. That cause should be rejected accordingly.

Read more...

Republican Majority for Choice on the Potential Personhood Amendment

The Republican Majority for Choice issued this press release on Friday about the new egg-mendment:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Bethany Vensel 703-739-8905
February 12, 2010

The Politics of Personhood: Bad for the Country and Bad for the GOP

Denver, Colorado - The Republican Majority for Choice, the largest social moderate organization in the GOP, joined with the RMC Colorado in condemning the so-called 'personhood' amendment. The coalition behind the proposition has submitted the required signatures to the Secretary of State who will review to determine if the personhood question will appear on November's ballot.

"Today marks a setback in our state's efforts to overcome the wave of big government intrusion and waste sweeping our nation," said Amanda Mountjoy, RMC Colorado Chair. "The problem with the 'personhood' amendment lies in its fundamental contradiction. It poses as a measure designed to protect basic rights. In fact, personhood would violate the rights of Colorado women by granting competing rights to a fertilized egg, and would put government smack dab in the middle of medical decisions ranging from birth control, to in-vitro fertilization, to miscarriages, and abortion."

Though this ballot questions was soundly defeated by 73% of Colorado voters in the last election, the organization Personhood Colorado will attempt to place the question on the ballot again this November. If enough valid signatures are approved the question will be put to the voters. If passed, 'personhood' would change the state Constitution to give competing rights to a fertilized egg separate from the woman who carries the egg.

"As Republicans, we cannot sit by while single-issue fundamentalists dramatically change our state constitution. We are already disheartened over the creation of new big government bureaucracies in Washington, DC. We will not allow those same intrusions to take hold in our state and hand over government control on such private decisions," continued Mountjoy. "Beyond that, this effort will open our state to costly legal battles which we just can not afford. It just goes too far."

In the 2008 election cycle, RMC Colorado supported ads and other efforts to stop the personhood initiative, and will again activate their membership to fight this year.

Republican Majority for Choice * www.gopchoice.org * 703-739-8905
333 North Fairfax Street, Suite 302, Alexandria, VA 22314

Much to my delight and amazement, the advocates of legal rights for fertilized eggs might not have enough signatures to get their new egg-mendment on the Colorado ballot in 2010. Normally, you need quite a few more signatures than required, because often people not eligible will sign the petitions. However, they weren't much over the minimum:

Personhood Colorado submitted signatures to the Secretary of State's office today for the Colorado Personhood Amendment. The signatures submitted totaled 79,817, although only 76,047 were required. All signatures are pending validation by the Colorado Secretary of State's office.

I'm not sure when the Secretary of State will announce the results, but I'm hopeful!

Read more...

Personhood Infighting

Wendy Norris reports on major splits in the anti-abortion "personhood" movement that spawned Colorado's atrocious Amendment 48. She writes:

Lost in the chaos of the U.S. House vote on health care reform and the machinations of Rep. Bart Stupak was an unexpected and unreported schism in the hard core anti-choice movement fueling the state "personhood" ballot drives.

A Nov. 15 letter that only surfaced this week reveals the stormy resignation of the founders of American Right to Life Action, a Denver-based political organization created after a high profile catfight with national anti-choice groups and James Dobson of Focus on the Family. In the correspondence addressed to its former ally Colorado Right to Life, the two leaders cryptically refer to an "incident involving a key person in the Personhood movement" among other unspecified reasons for their immediate departure from the group.

The sudden split by President Brian Rohrbough and Vice President Steve Curtis caps off a series of controversial antics at the tax-exempt nonprofit ARTLA. In its brief two year tenure the group sought to end abortion within an unexplained 12 year timeline, "challenge the 'wicked courts' and oppose 'child-killing regulations'" through state ballot measures, like promoting constitutional rights for fertilized eggs.

You can read the rest of the article here. Undoubtedly, I would prefer the personhood movment to be defeated because the American people thoroughly reject the claim that an embryo/fetus is a person with a right to life. In the meantime, however, I welcome such infighting from these dangerous religious zealots.

Read more...