The Nation: An Amendment Sarah Palin Must Love

[marmar]

An Amendment Sarah Palin Must Love
posted by Peter Rothberg on 10/02/2008 @ 3:58pm



Thanks to Ann Friedman at Feministing.com for highlighting a ghastly, almost South Dakota-like antichoice ballot measure in Colorado, known as Amendment 48.

It's offenses are manifold. As Friedman grimly chronicles, this bill is not just anti-abortion, but anti-contraception; it will disproportionately effect young women, women of color, incarcerated women, and low-income women; it advances fetal rights over women's rights and it misleadingly co-opts feminist language. (The group backing the amendment is called Colorado for Equal Rights.)

Amendment 48 not only bans all abortions in every instance--even in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman is at risk--it also threatens stem cell research and in vitro fertilization, compromises the doctor-patient relationship, and deprives access to common hormonal birth control methods (i.e. the pill and IUD), and to emergency contraception for rape and incest victims.

In this video Dr. Eliza Buyers, a Denver-based OB/GYN, explains why it's so important to defeat Amendment 48.

Watch: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/actnow/367609/an_amendment_sarah_palin_must_love


Moreover, the measure, according to the Washington Post, could also expand the reach of the law into other arenas in alarming ways. "For instance, if a woman miscarries, she could be held responsible if it were found she caused it, even unintentionally. If she smoked or drank while pregnant, her behavior might be considered negligence. Damaged eggs might be eligible for monetary damages. The use of fertilized eggs at fertility clinics or in medical research labs would come into question because the disposal of unused eggs could be considered homicide."

For more on how you can help defeat Amendment 48 go to the Protect Families, Protect Choices website. And for those of you who in Colorado, be sure to vote no on Amendment 48 on November 4!


http://www.thenation.com/blogs/actnow/367609/an_amendment_sarah_palin_must_love

[barbtries]

1. they got this bill onto the ballot?

incredible.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. I looked up the requirements about it

They needed 5% of the votes cast in the last Secretary of State election - which was about 76,000, or about 2% of the over-18 population of Colorado. They collected about 130,000 signatures, which a random sample showed to be about 20% false. But the rules say that if the ones left are still 110% more than the required minimum, then the proposal gets onto the ballot.

So it seems that about 3% of Colorado adults were willing to sign their names to this.

[HockeyMom]

2. Under this bill I would be dead

having had an ectopic pg.

[riverdeep]

3. Didn't The Amazing Sarah Palin, Hockey Mom and VP Candidate™

just say something about 'folks' wanting the government to get out of the way and seeing it as the problem, not the solution? Why can't a mainstream politician ever just shove the steaming pile of hypocrisy into their face once and for all? The Republicans are all for big government, when it suits their agenda.