Some years ago, I broke my leg skiing. My compound fracture required several surgeries and a two and a half year recovery. Despite being somewhat dazed by the events of the day, I asked my doctor countless questions about the surgery, about my options for treatment and about the recovery process. I wanted to make the best decisions for myself.

No government told my doctor what specific details to tell me about the surgery or about my treatment options. No government dictated what I had to know before I made decisions that I considered best for myself. No government assumed I was too stupid or foolish to get the information I wanted to make the right choice.

The consequences of a bad decision on my part or of bad medical care on my doctor's part could have been terrible. I could have lost my leg to gangrene or my life to blood clots. I could have had a significant disability or a dangerous infection. Yet, the State of Colorado didn't dictate what information I needed to make an important medical and personal decision. The State didn't force me to get information I considered unhelpful or irrelevant.

That's certainly not the case with Amendment 25, the so-called "women's right to know" initiative. Let's be honest here. The group promoting Amendment 25 isn't really interested in helping women make choices about abortion. It has a clear agenda. That agenda is to prohibit women from having abortions. Period.

I respect the right of the anti-choice lobby to have their opinions about abortion. I just want them to be honest about what they're trying to do. They're trying to make abortion impossible and illegal. They have a right in our democracy to try to do that. But, let's be clear. They absolutely are not trying to give women the information they need to make a reasoned choice about whether or not to have an abortion.

Let's look at what information Amendment 25 requires that a physician, not a qualified health care professional (including a nurse-midwife), must provide to a woman seeking an abortion. This information must be given in person, verbally, by the physician. A woman has absolutely no choice about what information she receives or who provides it.

The information must include a verbal and video description of the "probable anatomical and physiological characteristics of the unborn child at two-week gestational increments from conception to full term, including photographs representing the development of an unborn child at two-week gestational increments." (And, where do those photos come from?) The amendment goes on to require information about the fetus' brain and heart function, internal organs and appendages.

Doctors must also give legal information about a father's responsibility to support his baby and ways to establish paternity. They must provide information about all the public and private agencies that will help a woman who chooses to continue her pregnancy.

While this might be helpful to some, most women already know the legal responsibilities of fathers and the sources of help. These requirements go far beyond the scope of a physician's expertise. A doctor is a medical professional and should not be asked to provide legal advice any more than a lawyer should provide medical care.

When you add to all this the criminal penalties of a class 5 felony, would it be any wonder that doctors would be reluctant to perform abortions. Women who seek an abortion, then, will be forced back to the dangerous procedures that cost so many lives before abortion became legal in the United States. One has to wonder if that is what the anti-choice forces are really looking for. Retribution against a woman who would dare to terminate her pregnancy.

Once again, let's be perfectly clear about what the agenda behind Amendment 25 really is and is not. It is not about helping or informing women. It is most definitely about taking away a woman's right to choose. It is about returning to the dark ages when women had no choice about their own bodies and about reproduction.