Pro-Life groups fail to garner enough signatures to get abortion ban onto November ballot

By

Boram Kim

|

Supporters of a Colorado ballot initiative that would ban abortion at any stage of pregnancy have failed to collect enough signatures for the measure be reflected on the November ballot. 

 

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Initiative 56, which would have banned abortion at any stage of pregnancy even in cases of rape or incest, needed to collect 125,000 valid signatures before the Aug. 8th deadline to be placed on the ballot for voter consideration. The initiative would have also enforced closure of abortion facilities and blocked the distribution of abortion pills through the mail.

The same grassroots effort led by Equal Protection of Children that attempted in 2020 to pass Proposition 115, an abortion ban at 22 weeks of pregnancy, led the push for Initiative 56. 

“The real tragedy here are the children who will lose their lives and the women who won’t be protected,” said the spokeswoman for Equal Protection of Children, Faye Barnhart. “We ran the initiative anyway. We had to do everything we could to bring to Colorado voters the seriousness of what elective abortion does to take the lives of precious children and the harm it causes their mothers. We were amazed how quickly news spread on a grassroots level. We had more than 400 circulators join in the efforts.”

Colorado legislated protections to abortion earlier this year and organizers say Initiative 56 did not have the financial and political backing that abortion ban ballot measure efforts have previously had. The latest initiative effort raised about $7,500 and backing from prominent figures needed to pass the measure was not there. 

The group says it plans to continue to speak and educate across the state and work to get the measure onto the ballot again in 2024.