When Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed a radical pro-abortion bill into law Monday, he also may have begun allowing newborn babies to be killed in infanticide.
The new law declares abortion to be a “fundamental right” in Colorado and denies all rights and legal protections to any “fertilized egg, embryo or fetus” up to birth. It also prohibits cities and municipalities from banning abortions through local ordinances such as others have done through the Sanctuary City for the Unborn movement.
On Wednesday, however, editors of The Denver Gazette warned that the law goes beyond allowing unborn babies to be aborted for any reason up to birth.
It also creates “ambiguity regarding infants killed post-delivery by cause or neglect,” they wrote. “Polis issued a signing statement saying the law does no such thing, but he’s probably wrong.”
Under the law, state and local officials are prohibited from regulating or restricting any form of “reproductive health care,” including “postnatal and delivery care” – in other words, after the baby is born.
Pro-abortion legislation with similar language in Maryland and California this spring also has pro-life advocates alarmed. A legislative analysis of the California bill admitted that it “could be interpreted to immunize a pregnant person from all criminal penalties for all pregnancy outcomes, including the death of a newborn for any reason during the ‘perinatal’ period after birth.”
The language is slightly different in the new Colorado law but it is equally alarming.
ACTION ALERT: To express your opposition to this radical new law, Contact Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.
The Gazette editors continued:
[The law] goes further, forbidding consequences for reproductive decisions made regardless of “the pregnancy’s outcomes.” Common “outcomes” include birthed infants. …
This unthinkable action could happen when a mother contracts with the Boulder Abortion Clinic — “specializing in late abortions” — if she delivers before the procedure. Dr. Warren Hern, the clinic’s founder, lobbied for this law. It could happen when a woman delivers an infant with Down syndrome. It could happen to “crack babies.”
Pro-life Coloradans raised concerns and Republicans tried to amend the bill to protect newborns, but Democrat lawmakers rejected the amendment as they “rolled their eyes and crossed their arms defensively,” the editors wrote.
Polis ignored the potential allowance of infanticide, too, while portraying himself as a “loving and devoted father,” the editors continued.
“Colorado earned the creepy distinction Monday for enacting North America’s most extreme abortion law — in a country that tolerates abortion more than most of the civilized world,” the editors wrote.
The United States is one of just a few countries that allows abortions for any reason up to birth. Most countries strictly limit or ban abortions after the first trimester.
But Colorado is very liberal politically, and pro-life advocates have had a difficult time passing any pro-life laws there. Even fetal homicide laws to punish criminals who kill unborn babies in situations unrelated to abortion have been rejected repeatedly by the state legislature.
Colorado is one of the few states with no limits on abortions, and abortionists there openly advertise abortions in the third trimester. In 2020, state voters rejected a ballot measure that would have protected viable, pain-capable unborn babies by banning late-term abortions after 22 weeks of pregnancy.
ACTION ALERT: To express your opposition to this radical new law, Contact Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.
