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January 07, 2016 10:34 AM UTC

NARAL report: national anti-choice groups targeting Colorado

  • 11 Comments
  • by: Jason Salzman

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

prolifevsprochoiceNARAL Pro-Choice Colorado issued a report yesterday exposing the legislative influence in Colorado of two national anti-choice organizations, Americans United for Life (AUL) and Alliance Defending Freedom(ADF), as well as the state-wide network of “crisis pregnancy centers.”

During the last legislative session, five bills and one resolution were modeled on AUL draft legislation, and AUL staff testified at numerous committee hearings, according to the report, titled “Against Our Will: How National Anti-Choice Groups are Targeting the Pro-Choice Majority in Colorado.

None of these bills had much chance of becoming law, as pro-choice Democrats control the governor’s office and state house.

But two of the proposed laws generated serious media attention: a measure requiring women to have an ultrasound prior to obtaining an abotion and a “fetal personhood” bill giving legal rights to a fetus, potentially threatening abortion rights, and allowing prosecutors to bring murder charges if a fetus is destroyed during criminal acts.

These two bills  were co-sponsored by key Republicans in the state, including the leading GOP candidate for U.S. Senate, State Sen. Tim Neville, and Westminster State Sen., Laura Woods, whose race next year will likely determine control of the state senate.

The AUL legislation was backed in Colorado by ADF, which frequently dispatched senior consel Mike Norton, husband of failed U.S. Senate candidate Jane Norton, to the state Capitol to testify, according to the report.

AUL and ADF did not retrun my calls seeking comment for a post I wrote on this topic for RH Reality Check.

One AUL resolution that cleared the Colorado Senate last session indicated support for government assistence to pregnancy resource centers–though such entities currently receive no state funding.

“They are a national network of generally unlicensed, unregulated anti-choice organizations posing as clinics,” the report stated. “Not only do they try to discourage women from getting an abortion with medically-inaccurate information, they use misleading advertising about their intent to get them in the door.”

The 60 CPCs in Colorado outnumber abortion providers in the state by approximately three to one, according to the report.

The largest affiliate of CPCs, Care Net, describes itself welcoming women “facing unplanned pregnancies with life-affirming compassion, hope, and help. Every year about 30,000 people volunteer at these pregnancy centers. And since 2009, there has been a 20 percent growth in the number of Care Net centers providing free ultrasounds to their clients.”

Comments

11 thoughts on “NARAL report: national anti-choice groups targeting Colorado

  1. These groups; AUL & ADF; realize that they are unable to overturn the US Supreme Court decisions on Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. They settle for "chipping away at the edges" of these decisions by putting in restrictions like mandatory ultrasounds, requiring M.D.s to have admitting privileges at local hospitals, mandating the width of corridors, waiting periods, and so on. The propaganda emanating from their CPCs is often worthy of the best efforts of Joseph Goebbels. 

    Colorado voters voted overwhelmingly in 2008, 2010, 2014 against so-called personhood ballot initiatives. These radical right wing religious groups don’t care in the least what voters think. For these groups, it’s “their way, or (hit) the highway.”

    The ultimate target for those groups is the far less known Supreme Court decision from 1965; Griswold v. Connecticut. Griswold overturned a Connecticut law banning sale of contraceptives even to married couples. Visit  ThePillKills.org   , sponsored by the American Life League, a fellow traveler of the AUL and ADF. In the 2015 session of our state legislature, Senator Kevin Lundberg opined, erroneously, that IUDs are aborti-facients. The war on access to contraception is just as big as the war on abortion rights. 

    Yes, I am a strong conservative for fiscal issues; but a libertarian conservative around these decisive social issues. In other words, let people live their own lives without interference from an authoritarian big government pushed by aggressive religious groups. And, a final thought, it isn't necessarily a war on women coming from these groups near as much as it is a war on the US Constitution and our secular democracy.    C.H.B.

    1. Dear Banger,

      I too was like you.  I was even Chair of the Jeffco Republicans.  But I left the party over this nonsense.  The only way to get the Republican Party to be truly conservative again is to destroy it.  Won't happen in my lifetime, but if it moves a little closer, I will be happier when I die.

  2. So it's time for another egg amendment?  <sigh>  

    Although as a pro-choice Democrat, I don't mind seeing those issues on the ballot because:  (a) we know how it's going to turn out (spoiler alert:  Colorado is one of the most pro-choice states in the country), and (b) it energizes the Dem base which in turns drives up the likelihood of Dem candidates in marginal districts winning (Rachel Zenzinger, I'm looking at you).

     

  3. I assume everyone here knows that Colorado was the first state to legalize abortion. What in the world makes these right-wing radicals think we'd ever go backwards? 

    1. You're right about Colorado being the first state to legalize abortion. But more recent history is also not on the anti-choice side:  look at the numbers on the previous personhood amendments. Did the anti-choice people ever get more than 25% of the vote? 

      Insanity is doing the same exact thing over and over but expecting a different result…..

  4. I am a bit out of my element here, but I am as pro-choice as it comes. Why would you be opposed to requiring M.D.s to have admitting privileges at local hospitals? Would that not ensure the patients safety in the case of an emergency?

    1. Who controls granting of hospital privileges?  By what criteria?  If a community wants to blackball an abortion provider, the hospital board can refuse to grant privileges.  If such laws required granting of privileges to all qualified providers according to some objective criteria, they might be just (they wouldn't but…)

      More later.

      1. And this is exactly what is happening in other states and communities.  Really, Negev, can you be that unaware?  The hospital will treat any patient who comes in the door with a life threatening emergency.  That's a matter of Federal law and has been for decades.  No reason the abortion doctor has to have privileges of any kind.  The doctor on call at the hospital will treat the patient, with or without insurance.  This is just another example of the anti-choice movement trying to make abortion more difficult to get.  If you are pro-choice as you say, you need to get more educated.  Go to Planned Parenthood, NARAL, the Guttemacher Institute.  There are lots of studies out there on just this subject and many others.  The anti-choice zealots lie with impunity about lots of things.

        1. I am relatively aware. My father founded more abortion clinics than you have offspring. I've just heard this argument somewhere before…..the whole "no reason" and "just making it harder to get"…sounds really familiar…

          Anywho I really hope abortion stays legal, safe, and accessible. No point adding unreasonable restrictions where they are not warranted. 

          Carry on…. 

           

    2. Two points, one of which has mostly been made already:

      1) The reason we have abortion clinics is that hospitals don't want to be associated with the procedure already. Also, doctors who provide abortions don't always live in the area where they clinic is located – in many cases they live out of state or at least in a different county – and hospitals won't grant them privileges because they aren't local doctors. So – hospitals won't give them the privs the law requires.

      2) Why do they need such privileges? The clinics never have a problem getting the very few patients that do need hospital care into a hospital. At best, this is a solution in search of a problem.

      But these measures aren't an "at best" scenario. There are many types of clinics besides abortion clinics, and many of those provide procedures that have more risk than abortions… The fact that these laws specifically target abortion clinics isn't an accident, and the people proposing them have ZERO interest in making abortions safer. In fact, most of the people involved would rather see a pregnant woman die of complications of childbirth that could have been prevented with an abortion than see the abortion performed. They would rather mislead women with lies about abortion, see them misled by "clinics" that are no such thing, would rather see women suffer from back-alley abortions than even providing contraceptive services to prevent pregnancy.

      I was anti-abortion in my youth; I participated in debates about it, and seeing both sides I couldn't in religious conscience continue to be an advocate with the absolutists that dominate the anti-abortion side of the debate. Democratic politicians have it right: safe, legal, and rare. And I'll add – unstigmatized.

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