During the Republican primary, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney promised to pick a running mate who is just as anti-abortion as he is, and he seems to have found that in Paul Ryan. “I’m as pro-life as a person gets,” Ryan, who is Roman Catholic, told the Weekly Standard in 2010.

The Republican from Wisconsin has cast 59 anti-choice votes on abortion and reproductive rights issues during his seven terms in Congress. From supporting restrictive limitations on abortion services to restricting military women’s access to abortion care, Ryan’s record firmly establishes him as an anti-choice politician. Here are five of his extreme positions everyone should know about:

1. Ryan co-sponsored a “personhood” amendment that would give legal rights to a fetus starting at conception. Ryan joined 62 other Republicans in co-sponsoring the Sanctity of Human Life Act, an anti-abortion measure declaring that a fertilized egg “shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood.” This would outlaw abortion, some forms of contraception and in-vitro fertilization.

2. Ryan supports banning all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest. In addition to his support of the personhood amendment, Ryan won his congressional seat in 1998 by emphasizing his opposition to all abortions without exceptions. But this puts him at odds with Mitt Romney, who has said he would allow exceptions in cases or rape and incest.

3. Ryan voted to ban abortion coverage from being included in the state health insurance exchanges. The Stupak amendment that Ryan backed would have prevented women from purchasing plans that cover abortion services through the exchanges set up under Obamacare — even when using their own funds.

4. Ryan compared Roe v. Wade to the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision. “Twice in the past the U.S. Supreme Court—charged with being the guardian of rights—has failed so drastically in making this crucial determination that it ‘disqualified’ a whole category of human beings, with profoundly tragic results,” Ryan wrote in 2010. After the 1857 case, Dred Scott v. Sandford, “the second time the Court failed in a case regarding the definition of “human” was in Roe v. Wade in 1973,” he added.

5. Ryan has supported defunding Planned Parenthood. In 2011, he voted for an amendment that would block Planned Parenthood and the health care organization’s affiliates from receiving any funds in a 2011 continuing appropriations bill.

Now that an anti-abortion group is poised to put a radical personhood amendment on Colorado’s ballot, potentially marking the state’s third vote on whether to amend its constitution to define a fertilized egg as a person and outlaw contraception and invitro fertilization, GOP politicians are being forced to articulate where they stand on the issue. At least two Colorado Republicans running for Congress have already said they won’t endorse personhood if it comes up for a vote.

The Denver Post reports that Joe Coors and Mike Coffman — the Republican candidates running in Colorado’s 7th and 6th congressional districts, respectively — will not come out in favor of the personhood amendment if it ends up on the ballot this fall:

This time around Joe Coors, now a Republican candidate for the 7th congressional district, will not endorse the personhood initiative, which would ban all abortions in the state, the campaign told the Post Wednesday.

“After its two failed attempts on the ballot, Coloradans have made their decision on this issue,” campaign spokeswoman Michelle Yi said. “Joe respects the voters’ decision and, for the next 90 days, will continue to focus on ideas to get our economy back on track by helping job creators start new businesses and expand their payrolls.” [...]

“I am against all abortions, except when it is necessary to protect the life of the mother,” Coffman told the Post. “Given the fact I’m running for federal office, I will not be endorsing nor opposing any state or local ballot questions.”

Despite the fact that it could make it on the ballot for the third time, personhood remains deeply unpopular in Colorado. Recent polling in the state reports that just 30 percent of voters say they would vote for a personhood initiative on the ballot in November. Most pertinent for Republicans like Coors and Coffman is the fact that the measure’s unpopularity has the potential to turn voters away from politicians who support it: among independent voters, 47 percent say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who is against personhood, while 19 percent say they would be more likely to vote for one who is for it.

As personhood initiatives made their way into proposed legislation across the country over the past year, Mitt Romney has continued to refrain from taking a firm stance on the issue. Similarly to its previous failures in Colorado, the personhood movement has not yet passed legislation in any state.

Anti-choice advocates in Ohio have failed to gather enough signatures to put a radical constitutional amendment that would define life as beginning at conception on the ballot this fall. The Associated Press reports that Personhood Ohio collected only a small fraction of the signatures required to add the issue to the November ballot — about 30,000 out of roughly 385,000 signatures — by yesterday’s deadline.

The resounding defeat in Ohio is just the most recent incident in a string of personhood initiative failures across the country. Since conservative lawmakers first began introducing radical personhood legislation to endow fertilized eggs with the same rights as humans, their legislation has been repeatedly struck down. Over the past two years, activists have failed to advance personhood measures in several states:

– NEVADA: Last month, Personhood Nevada organizers failed to collect enough signatures to get their proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot. A similar anti-choice measure was denied by the state’s courts two years ago.

– OKLAHOMA: Although the state Senate passed a personhood bill 34-8 in February, the Oklahoma House failed to bring it up for a vote in April, effectively killing the bill for this session. That same month, Oklahoma’s Supreme Court also struck down a proposed personhood ballot initiative, ruling that the measure was “clearly unconstitutional.”

– VIRGINIA: In February, the Virginia Senate sent a personhood bill back to committee rather than bringing it up for a vote, effectively killing the bill for the 2012 legislative session. The Senate voted 24-14 to carry the bill over until next year, when its sponsor can choose to bring it up again for additional consideration.

– FLORIDA: Since Personhood Florida collected only around 20,000 of the 676,811 signatures needed to put a personhood amendment on the state ballot in 2012, they were forced to drop their petition last December. The group vowed to try again for the 2014 ballot, but have only collected ten percent of the required signatures so far.

– MISSISSIPPI: In one of the first and arguably most stunning defeats for the personhood movement, Mississippi voters rejected a personhood bill with a 58 percent majority. Mississippi is regarded as one of the most anti-choice states in the nation, and the ballot initiative’s defeat served as a stark reminder of the personhood movement’s extreme radicalism.

Although some personhood initiatives remain undecided — bills in Alabama and Iowa stalled in committee — not a single piece of this type of radical anti-choice legislation has passed at this point. Personhood activists insist that their movement is growing stronger, but the evidence in states across the country doesn’t back up the claim.