This afternoon at 1:00, Governor Bill Ritter, Republican Senator Dottie Wham, Dr Eric Surrey, Eliza Johnson, RN, Former Colorado Supreme Court Justice Jean Dubofsky, and Colorado Bar Association President David Rydell spoke at the Colorado Capitol steps to make their case against Amendment 48 and how it goes too far. Demonstrators representing the medical and legal professions stood behind the podium along with other opponents of the amendment.
Governor Bill Ritter was the first to speak about the legal jam-up this amendment would create. As a rule, pro-life Ritter advocates access to abortion in cases of rape and incest to which this amendment pays no heed. "Today I announce my own opposition to amendment 48 because I do believe it is bad policy, bad medicine and bad law. I believe this amendment takes an extreme position. It goes way too far. It threatens medical care, and it would create a legal nightmare in our state. Its why doctors, nurses, medical professionals, legal experts and elected officials from both sides of the aisle oppose amendment 48. The bi-partisan broad-based coalition opposing amendment 48 includes more than eighty different state and national organizations. Coloradoans have a long and proud history of rejecting government intrusion into their family decision and I believe and hope that they'll reject amendment 48 on November 4th. Coloradoans also have a long and proud history of coming up with unique solutions to problems and challenges. Amendment 48 does not solve anything and in fact it only creates problems. Amendment 48 will put the Governor, the courts and lawyers between a woman and her doctor. As a former District Attorney I oppose amendment 48 because it would criminalize necessary medical care."
Doctor Eric Surrey and Eliza Johnson, RN enumerated the points that this amendment defies common medical knowledge and would legally interfere with the relationship between families and doctors and the ability for a doctor to give the sound medical care. Dr Surrey has worked for the last 20 years helping couples build families as a Reproductive Endocrinologist. He sees this amendment as a hindrance of modern medical advances that help couples in various complicated situations.
Attorney David Rydell spoke about the legal quandary 48 would create. Rydell emphasized that the Bar Association takes no opinion on any other aspect of the amendment outside of its legal intimations. He said, "the executive council voted to oppose 48 on the grounds that it will significantly impact the laws of Colorado and present a number of unintended consequences. To give you some sense of the enormity of the consequences, the word 'person' appears more than 20,000 times in Colorado statutes. To redefine 'person' as amendment 48 proposes, would effectively amend all the statutes in Colorado that contain that term. The impact on previous and future court decisions is enormous and would result in a great deal of needles litigation and expense. Almost every area of law would be impacted."
Former Colorado Supreme Court Justice and Civil Rights Lawyer Jean Dubofsky went on about how the proponents of 48 claim the amendment to be simple but in reality, "there is nothing simple about amendment 48... Amendment 48 complicates the routine property transfers or administration of its states. The voters should heed the bar Associations words, and vote no on amendment 48."
Todays event was testimony from a bi-partisan and broad based constituency that this amendment goes too far. Amendment 48 does not take into account the various and far-reaching implications that such legislation would impose on Coloradoans. It may seem simple but the consequences that this would cause are too great a burden for our state to bear.
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