Before Wednesday's Republican debate in Colorado, home of the personhood movement, it's worth a quick review of the top GOP candidates' positions on personhood laws, which would ban abortion by giving legal rights to zygotes (fertilized eggs).
The Personhood Alliance, a national anti-choice organization, has made this easy by publishing a micro website with the abortion positions of the top six Republican presidential candidates.
Among the candidates listed on the website, only Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are on record as personhood supporters. Both pledged to co-sponsor federal personhood legislation, called the Life at Conception Act, but neither of them actually did so, according to documents cited by the Personhood Alliance.
Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner said last year that the Life at Conception Act was not a personhood bill, even though everyone else said it was, and he was a co-sponsor of the House version. On the Senate side, the legislation was sponsored by a fading GOP presidential candidate, Sen. Rand Paul.
Unfortunately, neither Rubio's nor Cruz's office returned my call, so I can't tell you why they have yet to hop on the federal personhood bill, as promised.
As I wrote Friday for RH Reality Check (here), Personhood Alliance spokesman Gualberto Garcia Jones thinks Cruz is more likely to fully embrace personhood than Rubio.
But, still, both Cruz and Rubio are personhood backers, which could prove to be a major vote getter as they work through the GOP primary, but also a serious liability if one of them actually wins the nomination and confronts more diverse voters.
In any case, reporters looking for local angles for GOP debate stories might ask Cruz and Rubio why we need to give zygotes legal protection under the good old 14 Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.