By State Rep. Cherylin Peniston
These “personhood” zealots will not give up.
Not once but twice Colorado voters have overwhelmingly rejected proposed constitutional amendments that would confer “personhood” rights on fetuses.
But instead of respecting what the voters have said, Rep. Janak Joshi, R-Colorado Springs, is trying to circumvent the will of the people and impose “personhood” by legislation.
House Bill 12-1130, sponsored by Rep. Joshi, would create a new class of crime victim – “an unborn member of the species homo sapiens.”
In an essay posted in this space, Rep. Joshi claims it “does not confer the status of ‘person’ upon a human embryo, fetus or unborn child at any stage of development prior to live birth.” Yet it would allow homicide charges to be filed against someone who causes a woman to have a miscarriage.
Colorado law defines homicide as “the killing of a person by another.” In other words, you can’t have a homicide unless the victim is a person. And you can’t have a homicide of a fetus unless the fetus is defined as a person.
HB12-1130 passed the state House of Representatives with the solid backing of the Republicans who hold the slimmest 33-32 advantage in the chamber.
This bill goes way beyond protecting women from domestic violence. As my colleague, Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder, noted when the bill was debated on the House floor: “You could be involved in an ordinary, plain old fender-bender with somebody you’ve never laid eyes on, and that accident could cause the woman to lose the child and you are thereby at risk of being charged with homicide.”
Statutes already exist in Colorado imposing additional penalties on perpetrators who knew, or should have known, that their victims were pregnant women. If this bill is to protect women, it is completely unnecessary.
But we all know protecting women is not Rep. Joshi’s goal here. He’s trying to get the nose of the “personhood” camel under the tent, denying all the while that he’s doing what he’s doing.
If “personhood” gains any legal standing, Rep. Joshi and other right-wing zealots will have taken a huge step toward their goal of outlawing abortion and maybe even contraception. HB12-1130 would be a step toward interposing the state between a woman and her doctor and taking away a woman’s right to control her own body.
Even the bill’s sponsor in the state Senate, another conservative Republican, Shawn Mitchell of Broomfield, understands the personhood problems it presents. Last week, he yanked the bill off the Senate calendar and said he was trying to “fix” it.
I don’t know if it’s possible to fix Rep. Joshi’s bill, except to kill it.
State Rep. Cherylin Peniston’s House District 35 includes Westminster.