In a video promoting a bill to ban nearly all abortion in Colorado, Christy Rodriguez, Executive Director of the Colorado Campaign for Life, appeared to mock women who’ve experienced a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy, a life-threatening condition in which a fertilized egg attaches itself outside of the uterus.
Speaking alongside Colorado state Rep. Lori Saine (R-Firestone) about her bill to make abortion a felony by defining human life as beginning at conception, Rodriguez dismissed concerns, raised by women testified against previous versions of the bill, that the legislation could result in criminal penalties for the removal of an ectopic pregnancy or fetal remains following an incomplete miscarriage.
See the video below:
“As I understand it, it does not criminalize women who have had an ectopic pregnancy,” said Rodriguez.
“That’s right,” Saine replied.
“That’s been one of the arguments during the testimony in previous years, that women come in and say, ‘I had an ectopic pregnancy. I had a miscarriage, and they had to do a D&C and this is going to… I’ll get thrown in jail for that,’” she continued, appearing to mock those women. “How to you respond to those objections?”
“Well that simply isn’t in the bill, and they’re throwing all of these red flags out hoping that they’ll convince the members of the legislature to vote against the bill,” Saine replied.
While the Protect Life at Conception Act does contain an exception for ectopic pregnancies, there are no specific protections for doctors who provide treatment during a miscarriage.
Under this legislation, performing an abortion for any reason other than to save the life of the patient would be a class 1 felony punishable by life imprisonment or death.
Ectopic pregnancy has increasingly become a topic of conversation within the abortion-rights debate after anti-abortion lawmakers in Ohio pushed a bill to require doctors to “reimplant” ectopic pregnancies, a procedure that doesn’t exist in medical literature.
According to a study published last month in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, early pregnancy loss due to ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage frequently causes PTSD, anxiety, and depression.
Responding to an email from the Colorado Times Recorder containing the link to the video, Saine wrote, “I haven’t reviewed the video yet and I don’t remember what you are referring to.”
“Any interviewer is responsible for their own words,” Saine added.
Rodriguez did not respond to a request for comment.
