Anti-abortion groups seeking to place a so-called “personhood initiative” on the November state ballot in Colorado submitted 131,245 signatures this week, well over the 76,000 signatures required to place the measure on the ballot. This “personhood initiative” declares that a fertilized egg is a “person” who enjoys “inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of the law.” The measure would threaten not only abortion itself, but IUDs, emergency contraception, in vitro fertilization clinics, and stem cell research.
The Colorado Secretary of State has 30 days to validate the signatures, according to the Denver Post. Colorado voters rejected an anti-abortion initiative in 2000 that would have required a 24-hour waiting periods before a woman could obtain an abortion, and a ban on late-term abortions failed to gather signatures to qualify in 2006, reports the Associated Press.
Similar measures were recently pushed by anti-abortion groups in several states. The measures failed in Georgia and Oregon, but the petition drive is still underway in Mississippi and Montana, according to the Associated Press.
