It’s not about abortion. It’s only about bigger government.
Forgive me as I write about abortion again, but the political ramifications of the recent United States Supreme Court ruling to the 2022 election is fascinating.
I’m not talking about whether abortion is right or wrong, but only its political impact.
When the Supreme Court created a federal guarantee of abortion rights in 1973, it changed absolutely nothing in Colorado. Abortion was already protected here.
When the Supreme Court ended the federal guarantee of abortion rights this year, it changed absolutely nothing in Colorado. Because, again, abortion was already protected here.
Quite simply the left can’t win any more abortion rights in Colorado. There are no more to be had. They won everything. It’s hard to get more than, well, everything.
Women in Colorado have full, unfettered access to legal and safe abortion on demand until their child is entirely born. It’s like Colorado pro-lifers were forced to sign an unconditional surrender on the deck of the USS Missouri.
To spike the ball in the end zone in this shutout, blowout game over abortion, the legislature this year passed House Bill 1279 which was a tantrum-style shriek, “and we mean it!” It reiterated the right to unencumbered abortion and further declared that “a fertilized egg, embryo or fetus” has absolutely no rights at all. And the left isn’t likely to lose any part of their colossal, complete and total policy victory in the foreseeable future.
A late-term abortion ban lost badly on the 2020 ballot. With Colorado’s demographic changes, progressives pouring in from states like California and conservatives fleeing to Texas and Florida, the state isn’t turning pro-life.
And, oh by the way, progressives control all levers of power in state government.
While conservatives should make sizable gains in fall elections, they won’t win what it takes to change abortion laws, even if they had the stomach to pass them.
So why is the left running around the state pulling out its hair over abortion and screaming that the sky is falling when they know it’s not?
Fear is always a bigger motivator than reason. Colorado’s progressives are working to get voters to be more scared of an abortion ban than they are of the rampant crime and spiraling inflation.
Take Gov. Jared Polis’ latest scare-tactic executive order.
He is bravely directing all state agencies to withhold the personal data of women who come from out of state to have abortions here. This way these poor women cannot be prosecuted for what would be a crime in their home state when they return.
OH MY GAWD, we better reelect Polis and his gang! A Republican gov would chain these women and extradite them back to their hateful, pro-life state to be prosecuted! Be afraid!
Just one tiny thing here: there are already lots of laws, including HIPAA, which protect patient privacy. What Polis is “stopping” is already illegal. Points for theatrics though.
But his order protects abortion providers too!
Sorry. Abortion providers are all licensed in Colorado as medical providers and can’t be charged in another state for their legal activity here. But nice try.
Just like it was before Roe vs. Wade, Colorado will again be a destination state for women seeking abortion. And just like before Roe, neither abortion providers nor their out-of-state clients will fear prosecution, here or back home. And keep in mind before Roe we didn’t have all the medical privacy protections like HIPAA that we do now.
Actions like this executive order and House Bill 1279 are shameful not just because they are disingenuous and purely symbolic, but because the sole objective is to scare and confuse voters on a passionate issue.
You could excuse common citizens, not steeped in Colorado history and law, for thinking that their abortion rights and the safety of out-of-state women are at stake in this election. But that’s just not so.
Inciting fear and panic over nonexistent issues for political gain — isn’t that what they accused Trump of?
Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.
