LWV supports abortion rights

For 104 years, the League of Women Voters has empowered voters through nonpartisan education, engagement and litigation to ensure voters’ rights. LWV also has policy positions on matters of public interest irrespective of party politics. One such issue is reproductive health, specifically, a woman’s right to choose her reproductive healthcare, including abortion.

The LWV of La Plata County supports embedding abortion rights into Colorado’s constitution. We feel strongly about preventing politicians and government from interfering in our most personal and private medical decisions. Currently, our state constitution lacks protections for reproductive rights. When those rights are law, but not in our constitution, they can be changed with a stroke of a pen.

Over the years, Coloradans across geographic and political party lines have defeated numerous attempts to ban abortion. By passing Amendment 79, voters will be changing the Colorado Constitution to recognize the right to abortion and prohibit state and local governments from denying, impeding or discriminating against that right. It will also allow abortion to be a covered service under health insurance for state and local government employees and for enrollees in state and local governmental insurance programs.

Across the country, laws and decisions restricting access to the full array of healthcare choices, including abortion, are equivalent to enforcing inferior medical care that disproportionately harms women.

LWV recognizes that several factors may influence a woman’s decision to have an abortion, such as rape, incest, partner violence, fetal anomalies, illness and pregnancy complications.

Passing this measure is crucial for women’s freedom, bodily autonomy and access to healthcare, including, when needed, abortion. Abortion is an evidence-based medical component of women’s health and well-being. 

Passing this law is not a “yes or no” decision about having an abortion, but a vote that says the government should not be involved in the reproductive healthcare choices of women in Colorado. This law says a woman has the power to make a decision with the people she chooses: her family, faith leader and doctor – that’s freedom. LWV believes Coloradans have made clear their desire to keep government and politicians out of these decisions, and passage of Amendment 79 will represent the will of Coloradans. A threshold of 55% “yes” votes will enshrine this law into our constitution, so every vote is essential. 

This measure gathered over 225,000 signatures, the most ever for a citizen-led measure in Colorado. Now it’s time to turn those signatures into “yes” votes. It’s a vote giving women sovereignty over their bodies.

– Board of Directors, League of Women Voters La Plata County