Amendment 79 cuts parents out of conversations on abortion

By Julie Bailey

If you take nothing else away from this article, I hope you will remember one simple thing: VOTE NO ON AMENDMENT 79. Why should you vote NO on 79?

Amendment 79, if enacted, places unfettered access to abortion through all 9 months of pregnancy, that is up to birth, into the Colorado State Constitution. It directly removes the constitutional prohibition on taxpayer funds paying for elective abortion. And it sets the stage for removing and preventing ALL commonsense limitations on abortion such as parental notification.

The language on the ballot reads as follows:

Shall there be a change to the Colorado constitution recognizing the right to abortion and in connection therewith, prohibiting the state and local governments from denying, impeding, or discriminating against the exercise of that right, allowing abortion to be a covered service under health insurance plans for Colorado state and local government employees and for enrollees in state and local governmental insurance programs?

Here are some important details you should know about abortion in our beloved state of Colorado and Amendment 79:

1. Abortion through an entire pregnancy for any reason is already allowed in Colorado due to the so -called Reproductive Health Equity Act signed into law by Governor Polis in April of 2022.

2. In the language of the amendment “impede” is a very important word. This word means that if 79 goes into the constitution anything that could be interpreted as interfering with unlimited access to abortion for any woman at any stage of pregnancy would not be allowed. So the current statute that calls for parents to be notified if a minor daughter seeks an abortion would be unconstitutional. Any initiative to limit abortions after viability (after the child can live outside the womb) would be unconstitutional. Any initiative to create safeguards for women seeking abortion (such as requiring a health department inspection of an abortion facility) would be unconstitutional.

3. Removing the constitutional ban on public funding of abortion means elective abortion would be covered by Medicaid and by health insurance plans for Colorado state and local governments. (There are already exceptions in federal and state law that allow Medicaid to pay for an abortion when the life of the pregnant woman is in danger or when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.) Removing this ban clears the way for the state legislature to further fund abortions for Coloradoans and for women from out of state seeking abortions in Colorado, and your tax dollars would pay for them.

4. Abortion in Colorado costs between $600 and $30,000 depending on the gestational age of the unborn child. Current statistics estimate that between 14,000 and 25,000 abortions are committed each year in Colorado (between 100 and 500 of those are after viability). Should Colorado lawmakers decide that public money could be used to fund abortions, the cost to Coloradoans could be upwards of $30 million per year.

5. Voting no on 79 does not ban abortion in Colorado. Amendment 79 makes it harder to protect pregnant teens and women. Abortion through all nine months of pregnancy remains legal in Colorado if 79 is defeated.

So, I beg you to ask yourself:

— Do I want parents cut out of the abortion decision of their teen daughters?

— Do I want my tax money to pay for elective abortion through all 9 months of pregnancy?

— Do I want to enshrine the unlimited access to abortion into the state constitution?

If your answer to these questions is no, VOTE NO ON 79.

(Julie Bailey is Director of the Respect Life Apostolate of the Diocese of Colorado Springs.)