March 14, 2018 03:50 PM UTC

Coffman adds to her list of contradictory stances on abortion issues

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• by: Jason Salzman

In a radio interview Saturday, Colorado gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Coffman appears to stand behind her work to defund Planned Parenthood, adding to her growing list of seemingly contradictory stances on abortion-related issues.

On KNUS 710-AM, she also reiterated her past statement that she doesn’t want to be labeled “pro-choice.”

Yet, she sounded like she was pro-choice when she previously said abortion should be “rare” and “safe.”

But abortion would be less safe if the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark abortion-protection law, Roe v. Wade, were overturned. Coffman, a Republican, has said she thinks states should determine whether abortion is legal, and she personally opposes Roe.

Except, she also has a self-described “libertarian view that a woman should have a right to an abortion.”

In any case, she also thinks Roe is “settled.”

Overall, she’s on neither “end of the political spectrum,” she’s said, and she doesn’t like any label. “I don’t fit in the category of ‘pro-choice,’” she said Saturday. “I’ve looked at the list of everything that is pro-choice, and there are a lot of things there I disagree with.”

But after a reporter labeled Coffman, who’s Colorado attorney general, as “pro-choice” in a TV news story, Coffman’s campaign declined an offer from the reporter to change or delete the pro-choice label in her story.

Asked on Saturday if she would “use the bully pulpit of the governor’s office to advocate for life,” Coffman said “yes,” citing her work in the Owens Administration when “we took funding from Planned Parenthood” by “putting the pressure on them to meet the law in Colorado.”

But she’s said “there is a right to choice,” which she’d support as governor.

In his post on Coffman’s radio interview Saturday, ColoradoPolitics reporter Joey Bunch quoted a Coffman campaign spokeswoman as saying, “As many Coloradans understand, [Coffman’s] position on this issue is more than just a label.”

That’s where this blog post ends.