Why It Matters That a Fertilized Egg Is Not a Person
by Ari Armstrong and Diana Hsieh
Coalition for Secular Government • www.SecularGovernment.us
August 19, 2008
Introduction
Amendment 48 seeks to define a fertilized egg as a person with full legal rights in Colorado’s constitution. If fully implemented, it would profoundly and adversely impact the lives of sexually-ctive couples, couples seeking children, pregnant women, doctors, and medical researchers, subjecting them to severe legal restrictions, police controls, protracted court battles, and criminal punishments.
Amendment 48 would outlaw abortion, even in cases of rape, incest, terminally deformed fetuses, and danger to the woman’s health. The measure might or might not allow abortions in cases of extreme risk to the woman’s life; either way, it would endanger the lives and health of many women. In conjunction with existing statutes, Amendment 48 would subject women and their doctors to first-degree murder charges
for willfully terminating a pregnancy, with the required punishment of life in prison or the death penalty.
The impact of Amendment 48 would extend far beyond abortion into the personal corners of every couple’s reproductive life. It would outlaw many forms of birth control, likely including the pill. It would require
criminal investigation of any miscarriages deemed suspicious. The measure also would ban potentially life-saving stem-cell research and many popular fertility treatments.
Amendment 48 rests on the absurdity that a fertilized egg is a full human person with an absolute right to biological life-support from a woman—regardless of her choices and whatever the cost to her. The biological facts support a different view, namely that personhood and rights begin at birth. Colorado law should reflect those objective biological facts, not the Bible verses so often quoted by advocates of Amendment 48.
Legal Impacts of Amendment 48
Amendment 48 would alter Colorado’s constitution, granting a fertilized egg the same legal status as a born human baby. It would add a new section to Colorado’s Bill of Rights stating:
Section 31: Person defined.
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 state:
Section 3. Inalienable rights.
All persons have certain natural, essential
and inalienable rights, among which may be
reckoned the right of enjoying and defending
their lives and liberties; of acquiring, possessing
and protecting property; and of seeking and
obtaining their safety and happiness.
Section 6. Equality of justice.
Courts of justice shall be open to every
person, and a speedy remedy afforded for
every injury to person, property or character;
and right and justice should be administered
without sale, denial or delay.
Section 25. Due process of law.
No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or
property, without due process of law.
Please, please read more about Amendment 48 at:
http://www.seculargovernment.us/docs/a48.pdf
Ari Armstrong is the editor of FreeColorado.com.
Diana Hsieh is the founder of the Coalition for Secular Government and a doctoral
candidate in philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
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