Photo: State Rep. Scott Bottoms speaks about a proposed resolution on the Equal Rights Amendment on March 2, 2023, at the Colorado Capitol. (Screenshot from The Colorado Channel)
This story by Lindsey Toomer appeared on Colorado Newsline on March 5, 2024.
A “personhood” bill introduced by a Republican state representative died in a Colorado committee Monday after hours of testimony from advocates on both sides of the issue.
Colorado state Rep. Scott Bottoms, a Colorado Springs Republican, introduced legislation, House Bill 24-1224, that would have assigned “person” status to fetuses starting at conception, essentially banning abortion in Colorado and putting other reproductive health treatments like in vitro fertilization at risk.
Several members on the Democratic-controlled State, Civic, Military, & Veterans Affairs Committee asked Bottoms if the bill included exemptions to save a pregnant person’s life or for rape or incest, and he didn’t provide a clear answer.
“Somebody that has been raped that goes to seek an abortion is still choosing to murder a baby,” Bottoms said. “Compounding that by murdering a baby doesn’t make sense in any rational society.”
State Rep. Andrew Boesenecker, a Fort Collins Democrat, said his wife had an abortion to save her life and expressed concern to Bottoms because he didn’t see any exemptions in the bill text.
“My question for you is this simply, should my wife be dead, or should she be in jail?” Boesenecker said to Bottoms.
Bottoms and several others who testified compared abortion to historical atrocities such as the Holocaust and slavery. While he was the sole main sponsor of the bill, 12 other members of the Republican caucus signed onto the bill as well.
“We’re literally letting a majority say we’re going to take a group of humans and we’re going to kill them,” Bottoms, a pastor, said. “In my opinion, that is the same thing that happened in Germany in World War II.”
Most people who came to speak in favor of the bill did so on a religious basis, comparing abortion to murder. The religious basis was explicit in the bill, which says “that innocent human life, created in the image of God, should be equally protected under the laws from fertilization to natural death.”
Will Duffy, president of Colorado Right to Life, said people who support abortion today are the same people who would have supported the Holocaust and slavery. Duffy also argued that abortions are never necessary to save a mother’s life. This assertion is at odds with the view of medical doctors.
“Anyone suggesting that an abortion is ever required to save the pregnant woman’s life shows that they’re just not familiar with current medical practices,” Duffy said.
While Duffy said he doesn’t have medical credentials, he said medical credentials aren’t necessary to understand human reproduction and “when a human life is created.” He also said that birth control “kills a baby, it prevents birth,” and that it should be prohibited under the bill as well.
Those who opposed the bill represented organizations including Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights, New Era Colorado, American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado and the Interfaith Alliance of Colorado, among others.
Audrey Hartfield, a graduate student fellow at Cobalt Advocates, a Colorado-based reproductive rights advocacy organization, said fetal personhood is “an ideological concept not based in medicine, science or fact” used as a tool to enact outright abortion restrictions. She said the Colorado Legislature has voted down 14 prior attempts to ban abortion in the state and such measures are also voted down by Colorado voters.
“Again and again, Coloradans have made it clear the government has no say in someone’s decision to have an abortion, and the data is on our side,” Hartfield said. “Compared to states with strong abortion protections, states with total abortion bans have worse maternal and infant health outcomes including higher rates of mortality.”
The vote was split along party lines, with all Republicans supporting the bill and all Democrats against it. Several who testified, as well as legislators on the committee, criticized Colorado’s passage of the Reproductive Health Equity Act, which codified the right to abortion care in Colorado.
“I don’t know how anybody could vote against this bill, I don’t know how we have a RHEA that takes away the personhood,” Republican state Rep. Ken DeGraaf of Colorado Springs said. “That is a very slippery slope that has led to Holocaust and slavery and all of those things, those scourges of humanity, so yeah this is I’d say the only moral answer.”
Democratic state Rep. Jenny Willford, a Northglenn Democrat, said the bill was extreme and out of touch with Colorado voters.
“Let’s be clear: Bills like 1224 do nothing to protect peoples’ health or well-being,” Willford said. “It has absolutely nothing to do with accountability, because it was never about accountability, it’s about controlling pregnant peoples’ bodies.”
Majority Leader Monica Duran, a Wheat Ridge Democrat, told reporters Tuesday that the bill’s failure speaks volumes for Colorado and the right to access reproductive health care.
“This was really an attack on so much and would have criminalized so much that doesn’t need to be,” Duran said. “We will continue to keep on fighting and standing up for the choices that we make and the voices that are out there, and I’m proud — I’m proud of our state, proud of our legislators for all the work that we do on this issue.”
Personhood bills and bills targeting IVF have popped up around the country in other state legislatures this year, passing in several Republican-controlled states.