While the Colorado Senate considered the House’s amendments to the “Safe Access to Protected Health Care” package of legislation, members of Colorado for Life, Colorado Christian University, Focus on the Family, the Colorado Catholic Conference, and other anti-abortion groups took part in a “Rally for Life” on the Capitol steps.
The proposed bills target the marketing practices of anti-abortion centers and their use of an unproven pill to reverse an abortion, expand legal protections for patients and providers seeking reproductive and gender-affirming health care, and expand insurance coverage for those seeking reproductive health care.
“I’m angry that we live in a state where they, the legislators, come in on a Saturday and pass the most extreme abortion bills to make Colorado one of the most extreme places in the world for abortion,” said Marcie Little, co-founder of Colorado for Life. “Then they celebrate by drinking champagne in the chamber. I’m angry we live in a state that would pass legislation to allow little girls under the age of 18 to get abortions without their parents knowing or their parents consenting to an abortion. I’m angry we live in a state that silences and censors pro-life pregnancy centers that offer women choices besides abortion, and they are shut down. They’re censored. Their voices can’t be heard. They’re told they can’t advertise those other choices. I’m angry we live in a state where even though there are children alive today because of abortion pill reversal, our legislature ignored the testimony of their mothers, claiming that abortion pill reversal is unscientific and has no place in the state of Colorado. We say not on our watch. It’s time for change in Colorado.”
During the rally, Republican legislators came out to address the crowd, not just about the abortion legislation, but also about provisions in the proposed bills that would apply to gender-affirming health care.
“I’m not going to call them godless heathens — but some of them are — all they want in there is for the pro-choice in this case, not pro-life agenda, the Planned Parenthood money slot machine that is a multibillion-dollar industry, and they want to make Colorado an abortion island not only for abortions to kill babies, but also for this transgender journey that they want people to begin taking as early as third grade,” said Rep. Richard Holtorf (R-Akron). “At 12 years old, they can start to have these surgeries unbeknownst to parents. Parents’ rights are infringed upon. There is chemical sterilization and castration involved. Once you take that journey in the LGBTQ world, you can never come back. This is terrible and insidious. You need to fight for this. You need to stand up for babies and stand up for our youth to make their decisions when they’re adults, not when they’re children.”
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), has detailed Standards of Care that describe when and how they should be used. The WPATH Standards of Care clearly state, “Genital surgery should not be carried out until (i) patients reach the legal age of majority to give consent for medical procedures in a given country, and (ii) patients have lived continuously for at least 12 months in the gender role that is congruent with their gender identity.”
Rep. Stephanie Luck (R-Penrose) claimed that the proposed legislation was reflective of the broader culture in Colorado. “We have to create a culture of life in this state,” she said. “It is not a culture of life. From the beginning to the end, we have only cultivated death, which we see with our high rates of suicide, which we see with our demographics and the fact that we are not reproducing at the rates we need to be reproducing, we see it in the way that we treat elderly, in the way that we deal with drug policy in every area. We are not cultivating life.”
Republican lawmakers made repeated appeals to what appeared to be the majority Christian audience. “What we’re seeing go on right behind me is the result of a government that has forgotten God,” said Republican Minority Leader Rep. Mike Lynch (R-Wellington). “Sadly, we see Colorado in a state today that is unbalanced. This is what unbalanced government looks like, and it lends itself to be ran by ideology. It’s not an ideology that we share, but it goes beyond that. It is an ideology that is so extreme that is just not healthy for this state. We are fighting every day to do what we can to make sure that your voices are heard. Sometimes that may look like moderation of a very extreme policy, but that’s progress. We as Christians pray for little signs that there’s progress every day, and that’s what we’re working toward. We so appreciate the prayers. We do need God’s strength every day in this building to come down here and to do what we do in the face of the folks that we work with.“
Luck thanked the anti-abortion activists for attendance during inclement weather. “Thank you guys for all that you do so that these little ones that are with us today that they can have a life better than we did and they can have more little ones around them,” she said. “That they can grow up with a generation that knows that they are loved, they are valued, that they are inherently valuable, that they don’t question their worth, that they don’t question their identity, that they know that there was a God who said, ‘You know what, my story needs one of you.’ It needs one of you and so that you are created because He says you are necessary. You’re necessary for the fulfillment of His plans and His purposes, which are good and true and beautiful.”
The legislative package is currently headed to Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO) to be signed into law.
“For twenty-five years, COLOR has led proactive reproductive justice advocacy, and organized for health equity across the state,” said Dusti Gurule, President and CEO of COLOR, in a news release. “And just this weekend, our bill to prohibit deceptive advertising from Anti-Abortion Centers (SB23-190) passed third readings in the House and is headed to the Governor’s desk. These centers target communities of color, even while RHEA exists as the law of this state. Their harmful and predatory practices will not be tolerated — this is reproductive justice in action.”
