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An initiative to define a fertilized egg as a person in the state constitution is heating up again — this time with national support.

Members of Personhood USA — founded in Colorado and expanded nationwide — plan on holding a news conference tomorrow with Colorado Right to Life when they will announce the launch of a petition drive to place a measure on the 2010 ballot that would give human rights to embryos, essentially banning abortion. 

Opponents raise many fears over the effort, including the possibility of it paving the way for a challenge of Roe v. Wade, setting a precedent for cases across the country.

Colorado voters last year overwhelmingly rejected a so-called personhood ballot initiative, which garnered only 27 percent of the vote.

But Arvada resident Keith Mason, founder of Personhood USA and the operations director for last year’s Amendment 48 drive, says his initiative was uplifted by the votes the movement received last year, arguing that it helped spark a national movement, which has added fuel to the cause.

“I was very encouraged by the numbers last year,” said Mason, pointing out that the personhood campaign garnered 580,000 votes last year while a 2006 initiative to define marriage in the state constitution as between one man and one woman was backed by voters with only 630,000 votes.

“There’s only a 50,000-vote gap there. So, to me that was very encouraging,” he continued. “Last year was a very different year, there was an unprecedented number of voters that came out, and so it was a crazy year as far as turnout, especially with a lot of liberal-leaning voters that turned out because of the Democratic National Convention (in Denver) and things like that. So, I think percentage-wise, in the number of votes that were received, I think what we’ll see is the percentage will climb this year.”

Opponents, however, are again raising ethical and legal concerns over the initiative.

One of the biggest concerns to opponents is that personhood measures could turn doctors into criminals by making it illegal to perform in vitro fertilization procedures, prescribing birth control pills, or even conducting emergency procedures on pregnant women, such as if a fertilized egg becomes lodged in a woman’s fallopian tubes. 

“People saw that it was deceptive, it was unclear, it was foolish — that it was sufficiently ambiguous, and that it could impact the use of birth control, which we know the vast majority of sexually active people use,” said Leslie Durgin, a senior vice president at Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, and chair of last year’s opposition campaign to Amendment 48. 

“From our point of view, I think most people thought and will think again that there are more important issues to deal with, like ensuring that people have access to affordable, reliable health care, and that this is a national group that has members in Colorado trying to impact Colorado laws and health care practices,” she continued.

Durgin is confident that her group last year laid the ground work needed to once again defeat the initiative in 2010.

The primary sponsor of the most current drive is Denver attorney Gualberto Garcia Jones, who replaces last year’s primary sponsor, then-20-year-old Kristi Burton, as the lead proponent. Garcia Jones says last year’s drive was important in that it sparked a national effort, which will help obtain more votes in 2010.

“One of the things that Colorado was really crucial in doing was that it spawned this whole movement,” he said.

Eight states have already or will soon introduce similar campaigns, say proponents. As many as 17 states are working on similar drives. Colorado and Montana this week will join Oregon and Mississippi in gathering signatures for a citizens’ initiative. North Dakota’s legislature recently rejected a personhood measure.

Garcia Jones says the issue is personal to him after learning that he himself was nearly aborted. He says the most current campaign will take a different strategy than last year, being more direct with its message and viewing the campaign as educating the public.

Proponents believe they have a head start this year by not having to spend as much time networking and coordinating thanks to its work last year.

For Garcia Jones, who is Catholic, the issue is about both “protecting every child by love and by law,” as well as equal civil rights.

“It’s a civil rights struggle because it’s pretty much the only group of human beings that are completely unprotected,” he said. “It’s basically the continuation of the natural expansion of rights … it’s kind of the last faction of inequality that we have.”

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