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Backers of a ballot initiative asking Colorado voters to essentially ban abortion in the state announced their campaign strategy yesterday, a strategy that includes comparing fetuses to slaves.

Members of Personhood Colorado unveiled their first campaign advertisement at a news conference at the Capitol. The radio ad, which will be aired in the coming days, compares the rights of fetuses to American slaves.

It features a fictitious slave by the name of George Stevens who says he fought to end the practice of declaring people as property.

“I fought so all slaves would be recognized as persons, not property, and we won,” says Stevens in the radio spot, as patriotic war music plays in the background. “But today in Colorado there are sill people called property Ń children Ń just like I was. And that America you thought you wouldn’t recognize is all around you, and these children are being killed.”

The ad asks voters this November to vote “yes” on Amendment 62 because the measure declares unborn children persons, not property.

“And that’s the America I fought for,” concludes the ad.

The news conference yesterday was attended by former Republican presidential hopeful Alan Keyes, as well as faith leaders who support the initiative.

The proposal would define the term “person” in the state constitution as being from the “beginning of the biological development of that human being.”

The Personhood Colorado campaign has also launched a Web site, MyCampaignTracker.org, to convince voters to back Amendment 62. Keith Mason, founder of Pesonhood USA and a leader of the campaign, said yesterday that the Web site, which encourages grassroots participation, has already generated 1,300 volunteers in about three weeks.

“It’s not even campaign season yet,” said Mason. “We’re pretty impressed with it; we’re pretty excited.”
The news conference yesterday also included Benjamin Goss, the current gubernatorial pick for the American Constitution Party. Conservative Tom Tancredo is in negotiations with Goss to replace him as the American Constitution Party gubernatorial pick. Goss said he will only vacate as a candidate if Tancredo supports Amendment 62.

The Personhood initiative would essentially ban abortions in Colorado, making it illegal for doctors to perform the medical procedure. Proponents are not shy about acknowledging that their goal is to ban abortion.

They say the initiative is needed now more than ever given controversial DNA experiments. Co-sponsor of the ballot initiative, Gualberto Garcia Jones, believes it is important to include even asexual forms of human reproduction, such as if science leads to cloning human beings.

“We would like all human beings, regardless of how they come about, to be covered, because unfortunately there’s the possibility that cloning is going on right now, and we want them to be covered as well,” Garcia Jones told the Denver Daily News.

A similar effort failed in 2008 when it received only 27 percent of the vote. But proponents this year believe they will be boosted by the conservative grassroots movement. They also believe that tweaking the language of the initiative by slashing the term “fertilization” from the ballot question will appeal better to voters.

Opponents are running a campaign of their own. Protect Families Protect Choices (ProtectFamiliesProtectChoices.org) says it has begun an “aggressive” campaign against Amendment 62.

One of the biggest concerns to opponents is that Personhood measures could turn doctors into criminals by making it illegal to perform in vitro fertilization procedures, prescribing birth control pills, or even conducting emergency procedures on pregnant women, such as if a fertilized egg becomes lodged in a woman’s fallopian tubes.

Opponents also raise fears over the possibility of the ballot initiative essentially banning abortion and paving the way for a challenge of Roe v. Wade, setting a precedent for cases across the country.

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