In Colorado, people who wanted to put an anti-abortion measure on the ballot in November were not able to get enough signatures in time.
The Colorado Life Initiative wanted to say “A living human child must not be intentionally dismembered, mutilated, poisoned, scalded, starved, stabbed, given toxic injections known to cause death, left to die of the elements for lack of warmth or nutrition, used for experimentation, or treated in any way inhumanely to cause intentional physical harm leading to intended death or intended to cause disability to otherwise healthy and functioning parts of the body of a child.”
There is a “living human child” for the group’s project “from the moment human life biologically begins at conception,” as stated on its website.
The date was April 18. The group had to get 124,238 signatures. Co-sponsor of the bill Faye Barnhart told CBS News that the group had gotten “tens of thousands of signatures,” but not enough.
In a news release, the Colorado Life Initiative said that it wasn’t able to get enough valid signatures because of people who were against abortion who they called “ProLife In Name Only” (they even called them “PLINOs”) and because they weren’t promoted or recruited enough.
She told CBS News that she will keep working on the problem and hopes to get another measure on the ballot for the next election.
Coloradans for Reproductive Freedom, a group that supports abortion rights, seems to have done a better job of getting people to sign. It wants to put a constitutional change on the ballot that would protect the right to have an abortion. On Thursday, it sent 230,000 signatures to the secretary of state’s office. The group’s signatures need to be checked by the secretary of state now.
In Colorado, abortion is legal, but the abortion access constitutional amendment would stop the government from taking away that right. It would also overturn a law from 1984 that says “public employees and people on public insurance” can’t get abortion care through their health insurance.
This November, abortion rights measures could be on the ballot in more than 10 states. Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, stopping federal protections for the procedure, these measures have passed in every state where they have been on the ballot.
The problem is now back with the states, but it has also become a big part of President Biden’s campaign to keep his job. Donald Trump, who used to be president, said that the states should decide the matter.
57% of Americans polled by CBS News said they thought the Supreme Court’s choice to overturn Roe v. Wade was bad for the country. These people also said they think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. More polling shows that abortion is more of a problem for Democrats than for Republicans. Most women, younger voters, and people with college degrees said that abortion will be a big problem for them in the election. These are all groups that tend to support legalizing abortion.
