Antiabortion Ballot Initiative in Colorado

The mother of all wedge issues will likely be in the ballot box this November in the battleground state of Colorado. The antiabortion group Colorado for Equal Rights announced today that it has secured "well over" the 76,047 signatures necessary to put a controversial "personhood initiative" on this presidential ballot.

The initiative would amend the state constitution to declares a fertilized egg a "person" who enjoys "inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of law," carrying a host of implications not only for abortions rights but for birth control and in-vitro fertilization clinics.

If passed, the amendment would pose a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, which many antiabortion groups have hungered for since President Bush appointed conservative justices Samuel Alito and John Roberts to the Supreme Court.

Antiabortion forces rallied around Colorado, in part, because of its low signature threshold to place an amendment on the ballot. But the state, though historically conservative, has not had a history of restricting abortion access, putting the success of this proposed amendment in doubt.

Indeed, a recent poll of Coloradans found that a full 50 percent of state Republicans supported abortion rights.

—Bret Schulte