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Brad Side of Things - The problems of personhood

Contributed by: Brad Bettag on 5/29/2008

The Brad Side of Things - The Problems of Personhood

As of today, Colorado voters will have the opportunity to vote on the legal status of a fetus in the upcoming election in November. As rational thinking citizens we all should be horrified.

20-year-old Kristi Burton of Peyton in her infinite wisdom and political science background has drummed up potential legislation that would wreck havoc on the court system in ways we have never seen before. I guess if Muskogee Oklahoma can elect a 19 year-old freshman student town mayor, Colorado just has to out do them.

I really liked the acronym a user posted in the Denver Post story with regards to the support behind this ballot measure:

(C)onservative
(R)epublicans
(A)dvocating
(P)ersonhood

I wonder who I would make my check out to...

But seriously who is funding this bill?

Christian Family Alliance of Colorado
Colorado Christian Coalition
Colorado for Family Values
Night Light Christian Adoptions
Rocky Mountain Family Council and Jim Chapman
Western Slope Lutherans for Life
Focus on the Family

Looks like a wide diverse range of agencies, now we should look and see who the biggest opponents of civil unions and gay marriages are. I bet you don't even have to look. But according to Ms. Burton's own quote "All humans should be protected by love and law, and this amendment is a historic effort to ensure equal rights for every person," I guess if you are gay you still don't qualify as a person... Apparently that is what Jesus wanted. The next question becomes what happens if the fetus turns out to be gay?

Moving on, Ms. Burton's bill looks to define personhood as "any human being from the moment of fertilization." If you cannot see the problems with this law, first off don't vote and please move to Florida, or else read on and educate yourself.

Ms. Burton clearly missed some of the far reaching ramifications of her bill, maybe she was too busy texting or calling her friends or being a typical young adult to really think about what affect her bill would have on Colorado:

My ten problems with Amendment 48:

1. A mother's miscarriage would have to be charged as manslaughter.

2. The umbilical cord wrapped around the baby's neck would have to be assault or attempted murder

3. Any other medical complications during would have to be tried as assault or even attempted murder.

4. Conjoined twins would have to be given special status and if one twin ends up killing the other twin (fighting for organs, etc) the unborn child would have to be charged with murder.

5. Mothers who smoke, drink, perform dangerous acts while pregnant (skydive, ride roller coasters, etc), will have to be charged with reckless endangerment.

6. A mother who has triplets or more could be in violation of section 8 housing laws because there are too many people living under 1 roof.

7. A mother who plays or is exposed to loud music could be charged with disturbing the peace if the baby is sleeping.

This is only the legal aspect. Do we really want to spend more taxpayer money or have a tax increase to fund the trying of all these new cases? I am sure we would need at least 1 or two more district attorneys, a few more judges, and probably a new courthouse or two around the state to allow ample room to try all these cases, and the list goes on.

8. Pregnant women would have to be able to use the HOV lanes because they are carpooling.

9. Pregnant women entering a club or bar would have to pay cover twice, or in fact may be banned from entering because a person in their group is not over the legal age to enter the club/bar.

10. I am not even going to go into the tax problems this would cause, because they are too numerous to list here.

You may say that some of my claims are outrageous and without merit, but they are just as outrageous as this ballot measure and based on simple logic would have to go into affect if this measure is passed. I mean there are monkies that show more human traits than a fetus. Are we going to pass a measure that gives Curious George the same protections under the law, are we going to allow Coco the sign language capable gorilla to vote?

Interestingly enough, this is nothing new; it has already been tried in Austria where Matthew Hiasl Pan, a chimpanzee, had been trying to get his personhood status late last year. The case was dismissed in October 2007 but lawyers for Mr. (Monkey Royal) Pan say they will appeal.

Jane Goodall and others have been trying for these rights for a long time and get labeled as crazy tree-hugging liberals and yet here we are with all the crazies from the conservative right, trying to do the same thing. Maybe I should start my own personhood campaign and go out and collect signatures to allow all the primates in the Denver Zoo to be given equal rights and demand that they be released from their cages. At least that can raise the median level of human intelligence in this state because the people who support this bill are clearly below the average.

So please, in November act like a person, use your brain and vote NO on Amendment 48. Colorado can't afford to have 20 year olds writing open ended feel-good legislation to waste the taxpayer's time and money and take away the rights of Americans, especially women; the Republicans in congress are good enough at that already.


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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Brad Bettag

Lakewood , CO

Brad Bettag has posted 40 stories and 46 comments since joining on 3/22/2006. Brad Bettag 's average story rating is 3.72.
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