Recent Majority PAC ad attacking Rep. Cory Gardner
Okay, so here's an interesting twist to GOP Rep. Cory Gardner's
flip-flop on supporting a personhood amendment: Despite claiming that he no longer supports personhood legislation, he has been a cosponsor of Federal personhood legislation
since July.
According to the text of the "Life at Conception Act," the bill is designed to "implement equal protection for the right to life of each born and preborn human person" and codify the notion that the "terms human person and human being include each and every member of the species homo sapiens at all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization."
That's pretty much the same thing as the Colorado personhood amendment, so if Gardner now opposes that, he must also oppose the legislation that he cosponsored in July, right?
Except Gardner not only is still a cosponsor of the bill, when Sen. Mark Udall's campaign pointed out Gardner's support for personhood legislation at the federal level, Gardner's campaign defended their boss by saying the two proposals aren't the same thing.
Udall's campaign spokesman, Chris Harris, pointed out that Gardner the last two years co-sponsored the Life Begins at Conception Act, which defines a human being as "a member of the species homo sapiens" at the moment of fertilization. He said it was basically a federal version of the personhood amendment, a position with which Gardner's campaign disagrees.
They can disagree all they want, but the only big difference between the two measures is that one would have applied exclusively to Colorado while the other would have been a Federal law.
Obviously, it would hardly be credible for Gardner to flip-flop less than nine months after co-sponsoring that legislation, but it's even less credible for him to claim that he's flip-flopped on the question of personhood legislation in Colorado without withdrawing his cosponsorship of Federal personhood legislation and while arguing that the two proposals are completely different. You can't be for and against the same thing at the same time and expect to be taken seriously. And that's exactly the position Cory Gardner finds himself in today.