There’s a new ballot initiative in Colorado that shows what the “progressive” Left wants as the next step in abortion policy. Coloradans are now in the process of voting on Amendment 79 which paves the way for taxpayer-funded abortions and for protecting pro-abortion mandates on private insurance. The amendment would also create a legal right to an abortion in the state constitution.
For many years—especially during the 1980s and 1990s— the abortion lobby in America insisted that it only supported abortion as a last resort for low-income mothers who had no other choice. The slogan was “safe, legal, and rare.” In practice, however, the mere legality of abortion was never enough for these people. Even during the “safe, legal, and rare” days, abortion advocates repeatedly lobbied for taxpayers to foot the bill for abortions.
This is why, in 1984, local opponents of taxpayer-funded abortions put Amendment 3 on the Colorado ballot, which banned the use of taxpayer money for abortions in most cases. The push for “public” funds is why Congress adopted the Hyde Amendment in 1977, banning the use of federal funds for abortion. For more than 45 years, abortion advocates have been hard at work trying to loot the taxpayers.
Now comes Amendment 79 which is specifically designed to overturn previous limits on public funding, and to ensure that taxpayer funds will be used to pay for abortions. Moreover, these funds will be used to fund abortions for out-of-state residents who travel to Colorado specifically for an abortion.
By defining abortion as a right in the state constitution, the abortion lobby attempts to ensure that state Medicaid funds and other state funds can be spent on abortions. This is all meant to be stacked on top of Colorado’s existing anti-market and interventionist abortion laws which include state mandates that require private insurance companies to pay for abortions with no out-of-pocket expense for the person seeking the abortion. Or, put another way, existing state law requires that virtually everyone who pays health insurance premiums subsidize abortions. […]
— Read More: mises.org
