By: Tom Tancredo
In the first week of April, the Governor of Colorado signed into law the most radical “abortion rights” legislation in American history. It removes all restrictions — and we mean ANY AND ALL LIMITS — on a person’s decision to have an abortion. It also deliberately uses the term “person” and not “woman,” presumably to avoid “gender discrimination.”
The new law puts Colorado among the most abortion-friendly political jurisdictions in the world. The full text of the legislation, HB22-1279, is available at the following link for anyone who thinks that description must be an exaggeration. [https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/2022a_1279_signed]
The legislation is also highly dishonest. The title of the bill summarizes its subject as a “codification,” a term normally reserved for bills that merely combine many pieces of existing law into one, more concise set of provisions free of duplication: “Concerning the codification of a person’s fundamental right to make reproductive health – care decisions free from government interference.” The use of the adjective “reproductive ” applied to a comprehensive legal architecture designed specifically to CURTAIL reproduction of the human race is a brazen corruption of language: such arrogant deception ought to be seen as pure evil.
This extremist legislation was adopted in both chambers of the Colorado General Assembly by a unanimous vote of the Democrat majorities over the unanimous opposition of the Republican minority in each chamber. Republican lawmakers not only voted unanimously in opposition to the bill, in the state House of Representatives they wages an unprecedented overnight “filibuster,” forcing debate on numerous amendments, all of which were voted down by the Democrat majority. Republican senators also forced consideration of many amendments — also without attracting any Democrat defectors.
To give you an idea of how truly extreme the legislation is, consider the fate of the Republican amendment to allow Colorado’s existing requirement for parental notification in the case of minors to be exempted from the bill’s sweeping language. The repeal of parental notification requirements in current law cannot by any stretch be called “codification” when it is undeniably the exact opposite!! Moreover, the current law was already a compromise: it does NOT require parental consent, only notification. Several Republican amendments attempting to strike this anti-family section were all defeated by Democrat voters. In the rush to annihilate all traces of moderation and compromise, even that must go down the drain.
Also discarded is any limitation, expressed or implied, on the definition of “health,” as was any regard whatsoever for a fetal heartbeat or the date of viability, the ability of the fetus to survive outside the womb.
This radical redefinition of “abortion rights” is being explained in some quarters as a “preemptive strike” in response to an expected United States Supreme Court ruling in June overturning the 1973 Roe decision and possibly the 1992 Casey ruling as well. But why so very radical? This Democrat legislation is so deliberately “in your face!” that it must be seen as more an act of political defiance than “health care reform.”
The irony is that just like the nation as a whole, the number of abortions in Colorado was in a steady decline from 1992 to 2017. Are today’s “women’s rights” advocates so enamored of abortion “rights” that they are panicked when the number of women choosing abortion is in decline? It is hard to escape the conclusion that to these new crusaders, the “right to choose” is meaningful only if the pregnant woman….excuse me, “person”… chooses death over life.
Or is there a more simple, and more purely POLITICAL explanation? Are these “progressive” Democrats seeing the handwriting on the November 8 wall? Are Democrats desperately seeking to re-energize the “women’s movement” in a purely Democrat-friendly direction? If that is the case, if that is a major factor in their lock-step party-line support of this heinous, nihilistic legislation, they may have woefully miscalculated the sentiments of today’s electorate, especially the growing pro-life sentiments of today’s “soccer moms.”
Yes, it is true that Colorado was the first state in the country to legalize abortions, back in 1967, six full years ahead of Roe v Wade, legislation signed into law by a Republican governor. But public sentiment on “abortion rights” has evolved in a pro-life direction, and public acceptance of the lawful taking of human life after “viability” has declined remarkably, even in Colorado.
Are Colorado’s Democrats so anxious to reclaim the state’s dubious title as the “abortion capital of the world” that they have discarded both commonsense and common decency? Sadly, the answer appears to be, yes.
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