A proposed pro-abortion constitutional amendment is making its way to the 2024 Colorado ballot after the group behind it said it has gathered enough signatures to finalize the process.
Coloradans for Protecting Reproductive Freedom is a coalition that is connected with ACLU Colorado, an abortion fund called Cobalt, and Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. On Friday, the group announced it had collected the necessary signatures to move forward with its constitutional amendment. According to its website, the amendment would ‘protect a freedom’ but it would actually change the state constitution to recognize a false right to abortion and prevent the state and local governments from passing laws to protect preborn children.
The group said it gathered the signatures of 225,000 registered voters, more than the approximately 124,000 required by April 26 to qualify the amendment for this fall’s ballot. To formally qualify, the total must include two percent of all registered voters in each of the state’s 35 state Senate districts. It still has yet to reach that threshold in three districts but said it only needs about 100 more, saying it is confident it will secure them.
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Coloradans for Protecting Reproductive Freedom campaign director Jess Grennan said in a statement, “Ballot measures like Proposition 89 are our first line of defense against government overreach and our best tool to protect the freedom to make personal, private healthcare decisions — a right that should never depend on the source of one’s health insurance or who is in office, because a right without access is a right in name only.”
It is not “government overreach” to protect innocent human beings from intentional, willful killing (in other words, homicide). Abortion is currently legal in Colorado without restriction following the enactment of an “extreme” pro-abortion law in April of 2020 that made abortion a “right” by state statute and allows abortion to be available through all 40 weeks of pregnancy for any reason.
If on the ballot in November, the amendment must get 55% of the vote, not just a simple majority, to be approved. In November 2020, Colorado voters rejected a ballot measure that would have protected babies from abortion after 22 weeks with about 60% of voters in opposition of the measure. This has given the pro-abortion coalition in Colorado confidence that their pro-abortion amendment will be approved.
