Right-wing Christian fundamentalists/zygote- and fetus-protectors won't stop trying to get the government to reflect their religious world view until we all stop fucking or start breeding a lot more. This is Kristi Burton of Colorado and she's spearheading a ballot initiative to give civil rights to recently fertilized eggs because it's easier to collect 76,000 signatures and change a law than actually convince the country that your religious world view is correct.

Kristi's little ballot initiative (which mirrors efforts underway in Georgia, Michigan, Mississippi and Oregon) would give fertilized eggs "state protections of inalienable rights, justice and due process" which would basically mean that if you wanted to, say, get an abortion you would have to go to court and a lawyer would be appointed the guardian of your zygote and argue against you. Fun!

Also, it would mean that any unused embryos from infertility treatments would have to be preserved in perpetuity; the state couldn't allow stem cell research on embryo-originated stem cell lines; and several popular forms of birth control would be, in effect, illegal because they function by preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg (as opposed to preventing fertilization). Kristi's helper in this effort is a much-older white dude named Keith Mason, who's totally not actually spearheading the effort and using Kristi to front it because she makes a better spokesperson at all.

Colo. petition revives anti-abortion bid [Yahoo News]