This editorial by our Executive Director appeared in Sunday's Denver Post

Colorado's anti-abortion extremists have a clear goal: They want to ban all abortions in all circumstances, even in cases of rape, incest, or when a woman's life is in danger.
Twice, in 2008 and 2010, they gathered enough signatures for Colorado ballot initiatives that would have defined a fetus, or even a fertilized egg, as a legal person, subjecting women and their doctors to criminal liability and banning all abortion. The attempted 2010 amendment, in fact, was very explicit with regard to forcing women who are raped to bear the children of their rapists.
When Colorado voters rejected this extreme agenda both times by wide margins, fetal-personhood proponents rethought their strategy. This time around, they have focused their pitch to voters on the genuinely tragic case of a woman whose pregnancy was ended by a drunken driver days before she was due to give birth. Because she had not yet given birth, the accident could not be treated as a homicide.
That was in 2012. The Colorado legislature responded thoughtfully, and has since passed laws that provide strong criminal and civil penalties for unlawful termination of a pregnancy through criminal or negligent acts, including drunken driving.
You might think Personhood USA and the proponents of Amendment 67 supported that legislation, but they did not. They opposed it because it protected pregnant women without doing what they really wanted, which was to define a fetus as a legal person and ban all abortion in the process.
Under Amendment 67, every place that the word "person" or "child" occurs anywhere in the Colorado Criminal Code, it "must" be interpreted to include "unborn human beings." The phrase "unborn human beings" has no established legal or medical definition, so it would apply without limitation to all stages of pregnancy, all the way back to a fertilized egg.
With this alteration to the criminal code, women and their doctors could be jailed for participating in an abortion at any stage of pregnancy, and women who suffer a miscarriage could very well be investigated to determine if they were culpable and criminally liable for manslaughter.
The cascade of potential consequences from defining a fetus, zygote, fertilized egg or frozen embryo as a legal person is mindboggling. It would allow the government and courts to violate the sanctity of doctor/patient privacy and allow government access to women's private medical records. It would prevent couples who want to have children from having them through in-vitro fertilization. It would ban many forms of contraception, resulting in more unwanted pregnancies and illegal abortions. It would prevent women from receiving treatments for cancer or other diseases that might affect a known or possible pregnancy.
Family planning and privacy rights and are crucial to the dignity and freedom of women and their families. Neither the government nor religious crusaders should be allowed to intervene and take control of difficult, personal decisions best left to a woman and her doctor. Amendment 67 goes far beyond what it appears to be at first glance, threatening basic rights and opening a legal Pandora's box that would be very hard to close, because it would be written into the Colorado Constitution.
Learn more about Amendment 67 here.

DENVER – All of Colorado’s county jails have now confirmed to the ACLU of Colorado that they no longer honor detainer requests from federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

ICE routinely issues detainer requests, or “ICE holds,” to local jails.  They ask sheriffs to continue holding a person in jail for up to five days past the time when the person would otherwise be released, so that ICE can decide whether to take that person into federal custody for a possible immigration violation.

Between October 2011 and August 2013, ICE issued over 8,700 detainer requests to Colorado jails.

Last April, the ACLU of Colorado wrote to every sheriff in the state explaining that the additional detention amounts to a new arrest, which Colorado sheriffs lack the authority under Colorado law to make.

Several sheriffs responded within days to the ACLU letter by announcing that they would no longer honor the holds.  Over the following months, the ACLU of Colorado advocated through letters and phone calls to the remaining sheriffs to convince them to change their policies and stop imprisoning persons on the basis of ICE detainers.

According to the ACLU, Colorado is now the first state in the country in which all county jailers have individually decided to reject detainer requests from ICE.  (See note below)

“Colorado sheriffs now agree that they have no legal authority to deprive persons of liberty—even for a few days—simply because ICE suspects an immigration violation,” said Mark Silverstein, Legal Director of the ACLU of Colorado.

“Nevertheless, some sheriffs are continuing to go out of their way to notify ICE of the upcoming release of a suspected immigration violator, in the hope that ICE will take custody as the person leaves the county jail,”  Silverstein added.  “By doing so, these sheriffs  violate the spirit and intent of last year’s SB 90 repeal, which recognized that when local police get involved in enforcing federal immigration law, they risk undermining the trust between police and the large immigrant populations that they serve.”

In its repeal of SB 90 during the 2013 legislative session, the Colorado legislature lifted requirements of local law enforcement to participate in enforcing federal immigration law in order to “enhance public safety by building trust between immigrant communities and local police” and to “ensure that local resources are focused on public safety issues instead of on immigration issues that are the responsibility of the federal government.”

In June, the ACLU of Colorado successfully negotiated a $30,000 settlement with Arapahoe County on behalf of Claudia Valdez, a woman who called for help in 2012 following a domestic violence incident, was arrested herself, and held for three days in the Arapahoe County Jail after a judge had ordered her release, due to a detainer request from ICE.

[Note: The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office is an exception.  Pursuant to Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, ICE has trained certain deputies of the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office and delegated to them the authority to exercise the powers of federal immigration officers.] 

Additional resources:

• Read the ACLU letter sent to all Colorado sheriffs in April
• Read Claudia’s Story: How a Domestic Violence Victim’s Call for Help Resulted in Three Days in Jail and Deportation Proceedings

Sept. 17, 2014
DENVER - Saying “it goes too far and is too extreme,” 82 Colorado faith leaders today joined together in united opposition to Amendment 67, the proposed constitutional amendment to ban all abortions, including in cases of rape, incest and when the health of the mother is at risk. Among many of its far-reaching consequences, Amendment 67 would also restrict access to certain forms of birth control, and restrict access to in-vitro fertilization for women who want to have a family.
“This amendment would impose one religious viewpoint in our state constitution, when there are many religious perspectives on this issue, said Rev. Jann Halloran, president of the board of the Colorado Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, which provides faith-based care and services to women. “We support the rights of conscience, and a woman’s capacity to make a personal decision with consultation from her doctor, her family, her clergy and her God.”
Signatories include representatives from Christian, Jewish and Unitarian Universalist organizations and denominations, including Rev. Dr. Thomas V. Wolfe, President and CEO of The Iliff School of Theology; Rabbi Joseph R. Blackof Temple Emanuel in Denver; Rev. Amanda Henderson, executive director of the Colorado Interfaith Alliance; Rev. Sue Artt of theRocky Mountain Conference-United Church of Christ; and Rev. Nancy Bowen, Pacific Western Region of the Unitarian Universalist Association.
“There are several things that are upsetting about Amendment 67,” said RabbiBlack, who heads the largest Jewish congregation in the state. “The manipulative use of language confuses voters to make them think they are voting on behalf of women’s rights, when in fact it’s exactly the opposite. While my tradition upholds the sanctity of life, the life and health of the mother is always more important than that of a fetus. To claim that a fertilized egg is anything other than a potential life is to go against Jewish values. It is a dangerous precedent.”
“This amendment goes too far in criminalizing women and doctors, and intruding on private decisions regarding family planning, birth control and fertility treatments,” said Rev. Amanda Henderson, executive director of The Interfaith Alliance of Colorado. “The Interfaith Alliance stands for freedom for all people to make decisions regarding their own faith and values, and we speak out when this freedom is threatened.”
A copy of the full statement follows.  Link here to the list of 82 faith leaders who have signed on. 

The Vote NO 67 coalition is broad-based, nonpartisan coalition of doctors, nurses and other health care professionals, faith and civil rights leaders, attorneys, Latina, African-American and Asian-American organizations, and dozens of community groups.
More information, including a list of organizations that have also endorsed the Vote NO 67 campaign, can be found at www.VoteNO67.com.

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Statement To Oppose Amendment 67 By Colorado Faith Leaders

As faith leaders, we stand in opposition to Amendment 67. By establishing fertilized eggs as persons, this amendment will in effect outlaw and criminalize abortion under any circumstance, including rape, incest and the life and health risks of the mother. Amendment 67 would effectively put into the Colorado Constitution one religious position, negating other faithful perspectives on this issue. It would, therefore, take away the religious freedom of many people of faith who respect the private rights of women and families to make personal choices based upon their own conscience.
We believe religious freedom is one of the foundations of our democracy, and one religious belief or doctrine should not be written into the state Constitution. There are many religious perspectives on this issue, and many Christian, Jewish, Unitarian Universalist and other people of faith agree strongly that a woman can make a faithful decision for an abortion under many circumstances, a decision that is loving, fair, and ethical based upon her own personal medical history, beliefs and needs.
These issues of reproductive justice are played out in public, but we know as clergy that individual women and their families are the ones who suffer in private. We have walked with women who have been abused and violated, and we have struggled with women and families who must make heartrending decisions about their own lives and the future of their families.
We respect open and public dialogue on these issues which affect public policy and the common good, and which include religious perspectives. We do not agree among ourselves as to where each line needs to be drawn, but Amendment 67 goes too far and is too extreme, leaving no ground for the protection of women nor their personal ethical agency to make decisions based upon advice from their doctors, support from their clergy, and their relationship with God.
Please stand with us and vote NO on Amendment 67.