February 23, 2012 12:54 AM UTC

Tell Us How You Really Feel, Colorado Right To Life Edition

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

Can’t see the audio player? Click here.

This is an excerpt from the testimony of Bob Enyart, spokesman for Colorado Right To Life, in favor of House Bill 12-1130 yesterday. We discussed earlier this month the defeat of Senate Bill 125, a measure “concerning crimes against an unborn child,” and HB-1130 is the equivalent introduced in the GOP-controlled House. HB-1130 passed the House Judiciary Committee yesterday on a 6-5 vote. Here are Enyart’s remarks from yesterday transcribed:

This bill seems to be very carefully crafted to be, for one, ‘abortion neutral,’ which it seems that not only the public and our prosecutors, but the media is anxious for Colorado to address the injustice against the unborn child who’s a victim of a crime. And so this, this wording, it doesn’t even say, ‘an unborn child,’ I think in deference to those who are hyper-concerned about the effect this would have on legal abortion. Representative Joshi, and in the Senate Sen. Ted Harvey, were careful to write wording that specifically indicated any crime codified in this Title 18 which is the Colorado Criminal Code, or Title 42, which involves drunk driving, driving recklessly. So when someone is committing a crime, and recklessly or intentionally injures or kills a pregnant woman, then the public, the family, the mother, the prosecutor, they have the opportuntity then to seek justice also for the unborn child that was injured or killed.

That’s the same argument we’ve heard from other proponents of this year’s so-called “fetal homicide” bills–they’re written to be “abortion neutral,” and not to unintentionally (or intentionally) confer the rights of a person on an unborn fetus. After all, that’s something Colorado voters have now rejected overwhelmingly in two consecutive elections.

The problem is, that’s the same Bob Enyart of Colorado Right to Life who once said this:

CALLER: Do you think women who have an abortion should have the death penalty, and if so, could you give me like one or two Scriptures in the New Testament…

ENYART: Alright. Uh, yes, but ex post facto law is wrong…

So, do we have to put 30 million women to death? No. But we say, like in Colorado–Colorado, the law was, abortion equaled manslaughter. And Colorado did arrest and prosecute, convict and punish at least one man that I know of for manslaughter because he performed an abortion. So it should be murder, abortion on the law should be murder, and if you commit murder you get put to death. And if the woman is a willing accomplice, she also would be put to death. As a result, literally, no one, you’d go many years and there’d be no abortions at all. [Pols emphasis]

CALLER: Yeah, that makes sense.

ENYART: There might be one abortion in years. And you find those people and you put them to death, [Pols emphasis] and as a result, you would save the lives of thousands of thousands–millions of innocent children.

So, do you trust the guy who says women who have abortions should be “put to death?” When he promises a bill establishing “offenses against an unborn child” is not a step toward that end? Suddenly this legislation feels quite malevolent, no matter how “carefully” it’s been worded.

Sometimes, a bill’s supporters tell you what you need to know despite what they say.