DENVER — Republican gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl is calling foul on current Gov. Jared Polis’ ongoing false ads about her stance on abortion and contraception.
“They’ve spent $25 million between Polis and the dark money groups to stop us, and we are gaining in the polls and within striking distance,” Ganahl told Complete Colorado. “We gained .6 of a percent in just a few days.”
Ganahl is taking aim at a recent Tweet by Polis in which he says she will take away Coloradans’ right to abortion and contraception.
“I pledged I would not make any changes to the Colorado’s abortion law without a vote of the people,” Ganahl said in Tweet back.
Polis continues to run ads quoting Ganahl with comments that she says are just simply not true.
Ganahl said she is working hard to get her message out, currently focusing within the Hispanic community, a segment that many conservatives believe relate philosophically to the Republican party more than the Democratic based on strong beliefs in faith and family — including abortion.
Ganahl’s strategy is based in part on examples from across the country where Hispanics appear to increasingly supporting Republicans as the economy continues to faulter.
The debate over abortion rights has become an ongoing battle of semantics, mostly because of a law passed last year by Democrats that allows a woman to abort her child for any reason up until full-term delivery.
Nearly every Republican candidate for public office supports the recent overturning of Roe v Wade — most because it solidifies states’ rights — and take the opinion that Colorado’s new law is too extreme, so Democrats are twisting their words to scare voters away from candidates such as Ganahl who have repeatedly said she would leave any new abortion laws up to voters.
In this case the word games from the Polis campaign accuse Ganahl of wanting to refuse contraception because the new law also has protective clauses included in it. However, Ganahl has been clear from the beginning that her distaste of the new law lies in the ability to terminate a pregnancy up to the day of birth.
A pregnancy is considered full term at 40 weeks. However, most babies born after 24 weeks can survive, and in many cases babies born earlier than that have survived, with the earliest on record being 21 weeks and one day.
“I will put that to a vote of the people of Colorado,” Ganahl said at a recent debate. “And yes, I do think it’s terrible to abort a baby in the final weeks of pregnancy. I do not agree with late-term abortion, and I do believe that Roe v. Wade should be a state’s decision. Colorado has spoken, and you passed a law without the will of the voters, and I would like to go back to the voters of Colorado and find a compromise.”
Likewise, Ganahl has never called for a ban on contraception. It was an answer to a question at a June campaign event that Polis has twisted.
When asked if she would support returning to states the right to legislate contraception and gay marriage, she responded she didn’t think that would happen, but reiterated that she believes in states’ rights.
“Right now, in Colorado, there are some things that have gone way too far, and we need to pull back,” she said. “Like the abortion law that was just passed here.”
