Colorado Voters Should Support the Ballot Measure to Ban Killing Babies in Late-Term Abortions

State   |   Michael New, Ph.D.   |   May 20, 2020   |   11:18AM   |   Denver, Colorado

This fall, Colorado voters might have the opportunity to use direct democracy protect unborn children.  Colorado currently has no gestational limits on abortion and is home to the infamous late-term abortionist Warren Hern.

However, Colorado’s “Due Date Too Late” campaign is currently in the process of collecting signatures for a citizen initiative that would ban abortions after 22 weeks’ gestation. More than 137,600 signatures supporting Initiative 120 were delivered to the office of the Colorado secretary of state on March 4. Organizers must gather an additional 10,000 valid signatures by May 29 to qualify for the November ballot.

Interestingly, it was in Colorado that pro-lifers organized one of their first successful direct-democracy campaigns. Colorado had been funding elective abortions through the state Medicaid program since the 1970s, but in 1984, Centennial State voters narrowly approved Initiative 3, which prevents taxpayer funding of elective abortions. My Lozier Institute study on the effect of the federal Hyde Amendment and state limits on Medicaid funding of abortion found that these policies prevent more than 1,500 abortions every year in Colorado. Overall, this policy has saved over 40,000 lives in the state since it took effect in 1985.

During the rest of the 1980s and 1990s, pro-lifers made relatively little use of direct democracy to attain their policy goals. The cost of collecting the necessary signatures and running effective statewide campaigns was often prohibitive. However, in recent years, pro-lifers have enjoyed some success in conservative states using this tactic, for instance, enacting parental-involvement laws in Florida in 2004, Alaska in 2010, and Montana in 2012. In 2018, West Virginia voters approved Amendment 1, which prevents taxpayer funding of elective abortions through the state Medicaid program.

REACH PRO-LIFE PEOPLE WORLDWIDE! Advertise with LifeNews to reach hundreds of thousands of pro-life readers every week. Contact us today.

LifeNews Note: Michael J. New is a visiting assistant professor of social research and political science at the Catholic University of America and an associate scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute in Washington, D.C. He is a former Associate Professor of Economics at Ave Maria University and political science professor at the University of Michigan–Dearborn and holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University.