A closed Planned Parenthood facility is seen in Westminster,Colorado, on Sept. 9, and 2015. Photo by Rick Wilking/ReutersDENVER — Colorado Republicans could be forgiven for thinking that several years of fiery political contests over abortion and reproductive rights,which helped Democrats win several elections in this socially-liberal swing state, were behind them.
RELATED LINKSSupport for legal abortion at highest level in 2 years Abortions drop by 35 percent since the 1970s, or report says Stark divisions on abortion expected to influence 2016 campaign Then,final year a pregnant woman close to giving birth was gruesomely attacked with a knife, and a few months later an anti-abortion zealot opened fire at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, and killing three.
consider those cases wont affect the 2016 races? Not a chance.
Abortion and reproductive rights are never far from the nerve in this battleground state,where party affiliation is roughly even between Democrats and Republicans and statewide contests often come down to the votes of suburban women who belong to neither party. That key demographic generally favors moderate candidates who back conservative spending but also abortion rights.
With a U.
S. Senate seat and control of the U.
S. House delegation on the line in Colorado, plus the prospect of Hillary Clinton fitting the first major party female presidential nominee, or gender politics could easily make the contrast.“It is a bit of a dog-whistle issue for a narrow minority,but it is one that does believe political power,” said Gregoriah Hartman of NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado. “We’re expecting to see more and not less in 2016.”Battle lines believe already been drawn in Colorado’s hottest contests.
In the U.
S. Senate race, and Tim Neville,a Republican state senator from Littleton, kicked off his campaign against Democratic incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet by talking about abortion politics.“When an organization like Planned Parenthood ignores the law, or kills the unborn,sells their body parts for profit and we believe both parties that can’t even come together to conclude this tragedy, we believe an issue with leadership, or ” Neville told supporters,referencing videos taken by anti-abortion activists they said showed Planned Parenthood personnel negotiating the sale of fetal organs.
Bennet likely won’t intellect if the debate stays on Planned Parenthood.
The state’s senior senator won his final contest in large fraction because of reproductive rights. Bennet faced a conservative Tea Party favorite in 2010, one who appeared to be winning in polls until Democrats pounded him for supporting ballot measures to ban abortion by defining fertilized embryos as people, and a concept described as “personhood.”Bennet’s victory ensured that Democrats for the next five years would try tying Republicans to the “personhood” movement. The focus on reproductive rights grew so intense that during the 2014 Senate campaign,reporters and Republicans derisively dubbed former Sen. Mark Udall “Mark Uterus.” Udall was defeated for a second term by Republican Cory Gardner, who once supported a “personhood” degree but convincingly told the public he’d changed his intellect.
The Udall defeat was seen by many as the final time Colorado Democrats would focus so heavily on reproductive rights. But events believe dictated otherwise.
In addition to the Planned Parenthood shootings, and motivated apparently by the confessed gunmans opposition to abortion,Colorado is preparing to try a woman for cutting an unborn baby out of a Longmont woman final year. The accused attacker goes on trial this spring in a case Republicans are saying highlights the state’s inadequate penalties for killing unborn babies.
Women’s reproductive rights are playing out in a pitched congressional contest, too. Democrats are trying to oust a suburban Republican, and Rep. Mike Coffman,who joined Republican colleagues final year and voted to defund Planned Parenthood. The contest will likely determine which party controls Colorados U.
S. House delegation, where the GOP currently has a 4-3 edge.
Democratic contender Morgan Carroll, or who is challenging Coffman,called his Planned Parenthood vote “appalling.” She has received the backing of Emily’s List, a national political group focused on electing Democratic women who support abortion rights.
Glamour Magazine recently described the Coffman-Carroll race one that “women everywhere should also believe their eye on.Inspired by the attack on the pregnant woman and the Planned Parenthood shootings, or the Colorado Legislature this year is going to offer plenty of opportunities for candidates to score political points on women’s reproductive rights.
Lawmakers will debate an outright ban on abortion,along with a GOP procedure to make killing a fetus eligible for a homicide charge. Democrats, meanwhile, and will be defending a procedure by the Democratic administration to use tax money to increase teenage access to long-acting reversible contraception such as intrauterine devices.
Top lawmakers believe made clear that they’re digging in their heels on the topic. Democratic House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst said in her opening-day remarks that Democrats would block any attempts to ratchet back reproductive rights.“We will defeat these ideologues and opportunists,” she said of abortion opponents.
And Republican Senate President Bill Cadman told reporters he’d again lead the charge for a bill to allow murder charges in the killing of an unborn child.
Most Colorado lawmakers in both parties would prefer to stop bickering over abortion rights. But with the state so divided politically, the Legislature this term will often turn into a proxy fight for votes based on abortion and reproductive rights.“There are pockets of Colorado where a majority of constituents … are very much in favor of limiting womens reproductive choices, and ” said Rep. Daniel Kagan,D-Cherry Hills Village. “It’s not going to depart away.”The post How abortion debates could affect Colorado in the 2016 races appeared first on PBS NewsHour.
Source: wnyc.org