U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R-CO) former campaign manager, Sherronna Bishop, is promoting a proposed ballot measure aimed at banning all abortions in Colorado.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Bishop called on “Patriots” to support the proposed initiative that would “prohibit the intentional killing of a living child.”
That deceptive language should look familiar to Coloradans because it’s another iteration of the “personhood” abortion-ban proposal, which has been voted down overwhelmingly in 2008, 2010, and 2014.
This year’s measure has a long way to go before it makes the ballot. Its text was rejected by the state Title Board Wednesday “on the grounds that substantial changes were made to the final draft after Review and Comment.” If the text is eventually approved, it will require 124,632 signatures to be placed on November’s ballot.
Organizers Angela Eicher and Rebecca Greenwood could not immediately be reached to find out if they. plan to push ahead with the measure.
It aims to ban all abortions, even after rape and incest, by granting legal rights to fertilized eggs, called zygotes, which turn into fetuses, giving them the same protection under Colorado law as a person. Hence these measures are referred to as “personhood” proposals. The measure could theoretically ban forms of birth control that could possibly affect zygotes. It furthermore adds a citizen-bounty enforcement clause copied from the controversial Texas law that currently bans nearly all abortions in that state.
“It is unlawful for any person to murder a child of any age or developmental stage, ability or disability, including any time prior to, during, or after birth,” reads the initial draft proposed ballot measure, specifying that “children conceived from rape or incest will be protected equally as other children” and “children whose parents do not want them, or cannot care for them, may be placed in a loving home by their parents through a reputable adoption agency or in the home of a known and trusted extended family member.”
