Women's Issues

Anti-abortion group Personhood USA has submitted 46,671 new petition signatures to the Colorado Secretary of State’s office in a second attempt to land an initiative on the November ballot that would grant fertilized human eggs the full spectrum of legal rights.
“Over the past few days, the massive quantities of signatures that poured in just amazed us,” said Gualberto [...]

Reverend Dr. Carlton W. Veazey, head of the national Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, is drawing attention to the fact that social-conservative lawmakers have levied into the health reform bill Congress is looking to pass this week a $250 million extension of the failed “abstinence-only” sex ed program that pays schools to not teach [...]

Last week, Colorado Republicans opposed a bill that would expand health coverage for maternity and contraception partly on the grounds that some contraception terminates pregnancies rather than preventing them. As the Colorado Independent reported, the Republican lawmakers were missing the forest for the trees. Women on the individual insurance market here are more likely to [...]

DENVER– The Senate today sent legislation for the governor to sign into law that will require insurance companies here to include maternity coverage with a majority of the policies they sell. The legislation will also require insurance companies to include contraception in all policies.
The bill, HB 1021, sponsored in the Senate by Denver Democrat [...]

DENVER– State Senate Republicans today opposed a bill that aims to require insurance companies to provide individual-market plans that include maternity and contraception coverage. The bill passed a second reading with the support of Senate Democrats, but Republicans said it would drive up insurance rates and swell the ranks of the uninsured. One senator made an anti-abortion argument against the bill and one argued against it for personal financial reasons.

DENVER– Planned Parenthood of the Rockies staff and supporters descended on the capitol today as part of an annual effort to lobby lawmakers. This year about 80 of the organization’s supporters specifically targeted legislators who will be considering a Senate version of a bill that would mandate individual market health insurance plans to include maternity [...]

Obama-supporter Gen. Merrill “Tony” McPeak, Air Force Chief of Staff, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times Friday saying he believed repealing the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” military policy to allow gay soldiers to serve openly would weaken “warrior culture” at a time when “we have a fight on our hands.”
McPeak is [...]

The Secretary of State announced Wednesday that Personhood Colorado failed to turn in enough signatures in support of its anti-abortion initiative to place the proposal on the ballot in November. The group has until March 15 to gather roughly 15,000 more signatures.

DENVER– Colorado Springs Christian conservative state Senator Dave Schultheis failed in his bid to redefine fetus-killing First Degree murder Wednesday. His bill, which detractors saw as a back-door attempt to work an anti-abortion “personhood” law onto the books, failed to pass out of committee.

State Rep. Beth McCann, D-Denver, is carrying two major health insurance reform bills this legislative session and has managed to move the bills through legislative committees and the House, so far, without any real opposition. It’s no small feat given the partisan fireworks that define all things health care this year