Civic Engagement with No on 48

For my civic engagement project I volunteered for the No on 48 campaign. On Saturday October 11th I volunteered from 11-5pm. We started the day out with a training session on the effects of the amendment if it were to pass. I already knew quite a bit about it from Lynn Paltrow’s speech a few weeks before but even though I already knew how devastating it will be for women, families, doctors, the court system etc. I was still in shock and very upset as if I had heard it for the first time.
However, I did learn many new things about 48 through that training. On the official ballot it reads that the Colorado constitution will define the term “person” to “include any human being from the moment of fertilization.” However I learned that there is no scientific or medical way to determine if a woman has a fertilized egg in her body at any time. In fact, three out of five fertilized eggs don’t implant, so by voting yes on amendment 48 we are defining personhood at a point where it is impossible to detect. When I heard that I wondered how this amendment could even make it on the ballot since it is based on giving personhood to a thing we have no way of knowing if it exists. This just furthers the conviction that this amendment is simply anti-abortion activists pushing their own agenda.
Also, when Lynn was speaking I don’t think she conveyed the full impact of this law if it should pass in Colorado. We learned that there are over 20,000 laws in the Colorado Constitution which have the word person in them and would thus be affected by this law. This would clog our court systems; tie up lawyers and in general waste valuable time and resources. The country simply doesn’t need that right now at time when we should be focusing on more important issues like the economy and health care.
Another issue concerning the amendment that was highlighted at the training session is that it would put a “what if” into the constitution. They say personhood begins at fertilization but haven’t outlined what laws that will effect and on what level. For instance, every time a woman has a miscarriage it could trigger government investigation to see if they did anything to contribute to it. However, that is not defined, so is it drinking a glass of wine or flying on an airplane? We don’t know and it’s dangerous business to change the constitution without knowing exactly what the implications are.
So after our training session we headed out into Lone Tree to canvas. We had literature to hand out and were supposed to see if the people knew what amendment 48 was and then tell them our own personal blurb about why they should vote no. The majority of people in the neighborhood we went to weren’t home, so we mostly did a lit drop. However, of the few houses I did go to, most people didn’t know what amendment 48 was so I had to explain it to them. I was surprised at how rude people were and how unwilling they were to listen to a quick 30 second talk. I found that it’s difficult to sway somebody to your side in just a few seconds and those people will probably only understand all the reasons they should vote no if they decide to do some internet research on their own. One thing that I thought was interesting is that the volunteer coordinator who I canvassed with always got excited about going to a house that had an Obama sign in their front yard, because in his experience those people were very friendly and agreed that we need to vote no. However, the two houses I canvassed at with Obama signs were extremely uninterested, so I thought that pointed out that the presidential candidate you support doesn’t necessarily correspond with your political views or perhaps some people don’t care about amendments because they think it won’t affect them. Either way I learned a lot about the amendment and political strategies and when and if amendment 48 gets shot down in November I can feel like I did my part.