ACTION: Colorado citizens in final push to get late-term abortion ban on ballot
UPDATE, 6/11/20: Due Date Too Late has announced on Twitter that their campaign succeeded in gathering enough signatures to get a measure against late-term abortion on the 2020 ballot, surpassing their goal.
#Initiative120 to end late term #abortion in #Colorado will be on the ballot in November! The SoS has certified 153,204 signatures and issued a Statement of Sufficiency. Thanks to all of our wonderful volunteers and partners! Now it's on to November!
2/28/20: Colorado is one of seven remaining states allowing abortion until the day of birth, with no restrictions whatsoever. At least one in four of the late-term abortions committed by Colorado’s well-known abortionist Warren Hern is done because the child has been diagnosed in-utero with Down syndrome.
Colorado’s legislature is controlled by a pro-abortion Democrat majority in both houses. A Senate committee and a House committee each heard testimony this session supporting a bill that would have required physicians to give medical care to a child who survives an abortion. Both committees rejected the bill on a party line vote. Before rejecting this popularly-supported bill on February 11, 2020, the House committee heard testimony from the Vice President of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. When she was asked what she would do if a baby survived an abortion, she told the committee she had “no comment.” When taken in context with the admission of the former Vice President of PPRM, Savita Ginde — who said that in nearly 10% of second-trimester cases at PPRM, the babies are delivered by their mothers before an abortionist gets to them — this is particularly troubling.
In the House, the same committee heard a late-term abortion ban that included an exception for the life of the mother. The proposed bill would have ended abortion at 22 weeks, the age of modern viability. This, too, was rejected on a party line vote, despite the multitude of medical professionals who testified in favor of the ban. Testimony was also offered from a witness with personal knowledge of Warren Hern’s willingness to abort a child in the third trimester solely for racist reasons.
Due to the refusal of Colorado’s pro-abortion legislature to consider even the least restrictive limits on abortion, Colorado citizens are proposing a ballot initiative that mirrors the late-term abortion ban bill. The citizen-led group, Due Date Too Late, is in its final week of signature collection. A press release from the group states:
With the March 4th deadline for the petition to turn their signatures in, Due Date Too Late is conducting a final push to collect the remaining signatures they need to make the 2020 November Ballot. The legislation would limit abortion after 22 weeks in a pregnancy….The petition drive is currently at 92,000 signatures and there is a final push to receive the remaining signatures needed by statute, about 125,000 to get on the November ballot. The goal is to receive more than 125,000 signatures.
“We don’t want Colorado to be seen as a safe haven for late term-abortion. A majority of Americans want to see restrictions on abortion, especially when babies feel pain” says Lauren Castillo.
Science conclusively shows that babies feel pain in the womb by 20 weeks, and some studies show they can feel pain much earlier — one says as early as 5.5 weeks, another says eight weeks, and a more recent analysis of multiple studies done by a pro-abortion researcher concluded that by 13 weeks it is highly likely that preborn babies can feel pain.
If you live in Colorado and want to help with the final push to collect signatures, you can reach out to the Due Date Too Late campaign here.
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