The controversial initiative taps into the increasingly heated tug of war over social issues waging between Christian organizations and representatives of the government, most recently, for example, on the question of whether employers should be required to provide insurance coverage for contraception.

As submitted, the title of the initiative contains one sentence. It proposes to add “an amendment to the Colorado Constitution expressing the public policy of the state of  Colorado that government may not burden a person’s or religious organization’s freedom of religion (pdf).”

An initiative title is the language that appears on ballots for voters to read. It describes the intent of the initiative and is required to be written in as straightforward a manner as possible.

According to sources at the hearing, the board yesterday made only small, non-substantive changes to the religious freedom title language before approving it.

Initiative proponent Tom Minnery, executive director of CitizenLink, Focus on the Family’s political arm, was not immediately available for comment.

Initiative opponents, however, told the Colorado Independent that the initiative language is deceptive, that it would not so much protect religious freedom as blow open exemptions in state and federal law, effectively setting up a separate legal standard for any person or group claiming to be motivated in their actions by faith.

The opposition is being led by a coalition of groups that include gay-rights organization One Colorado, the Interfaith Alliance of Colorado, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains and the Colorado chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, among others. Coalition representatives told the Independent they are determined to challenge the title as too vague and legally fraught, either by appealing to the title board, challenging the title in court, or both.

“We’re prepared to go to the [state] Supreme Court,” said One Colorado Executive Director Brad Clark. “The measure is not only vague, it’s also unnecessary. Protections for religious freedom are already written into the  state and U.S. constitutions. We think [the initiative] is redundant, which raises questions about the true intent here. We think there should be a lot more public discussion about this proposal.”

Supporters of the initiative have made the case for it in the past by citing the fact that displays of faith in the public sphere have come under fire. They point to the case in Littleton, Colorado, for example, where legal wrangling bogged down efforts to erect Christian memorials at Columbine, the public high school where 13 people died in the tragic shootings of 1999.

Clark and others, however, say Columbine, although a powerful point of reference, is perhaps less relevant than more recent battles over contraception, abortion and gay equality. Those battles, they say, provide context vital to understanding what’s at stake.

“We’re concerned about the civil rights implications,” Jeremy Shaver, executive director of the Colorado Interfaith Alliance, told the Independent. “We think the way the initiative is written could provide legal cover for discrimination.”

Shaver said employers might lean on the amendment to refuse to hire divorced women. Landlords could avoid renting to unmarried couples. Doctors or pharmacists could decline to treat or serve gay patients and customers.

Cardozo School of Law Professor Marci Hamilton, who specializes in constitutional state and religion questions, has argued for years against what she calls the new wave of “extreme state religious freedom… legislation.” She says initiatives like the one Focus on the Family is proposing for Colorado would lift important legal protections that guard the public against potentially harmful actions motivated by religious belief.

Hamilton has said that women seeking abortions and gay people seeking housing or employment are examples that come immediately to mind, but that children are perhaps the most vulnerable population in these matters. In testifying against similar proposals elsewhere (e.g.: pdf), Hamilton has pointed out that children have been forced by adult minders of various faiths to go without inoculations or to depend on prayer alone to cure illness, for example, and that they have also been subjected on a vast scale to physical and sexual abuse that can be covered over with reference to religious belief or ritual.

Hamilton says the legal history tied to the struck-down federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 and the subsequent state versions that cropped up in its wake documents a struggle to balance legal priorities and to shift burdens to protect or to not infringe upon constitutional rights.

“The very name of the Religious Freedom Restoration acts connote America and apple pie,” she wrote in a 2010 essay. “Who could disagree with a law in favor of restoring religious freedom, which is our constitutional right?

“Yet, providing such a low threshold for a religious group or individual to avoid… accountability virtually guarantees that such groups will be able to hide behind high legal barriers.”

In addition to mounting a challenge to the initiative title, One Colorado has already submitted a sort of companion initiative to the state that seeks to clarify laws governing “actions related to religious belief” by tying them more specifically to the private sphere (pdf).

Clark called the One Colorado initiative “definitional” and described it as “just another avenue” to expand public safety and equality safeguards.

For politics and religion watchers in Colorado, the battle this year over the initiative recalls a battle fought in 2010, when Focus on the Family, acting with the Catholic Church, submitted a first-round version of its religious freedom proposal. That version drew similarly strong opposition and the proponents pulled it in the face of an impending Supreme Court challenge.

One of the initiative proponents in 2010 was Jenny Kraska, director of the Colorado Catholic Conference, the political wing for the Church’s three dioceses in the state. Representatives of the Catholic Church have not signed on as proponents of this year’s version nor yet declared public support for it, although the Church is supporting similar efforts around the country, including in North Dakota and Kansas.

Messages left with the Colorado Catholic Conference were not immediately returned.

[ Image of Focus on the Family headquarters, a travel blog photo via TravelPod page: The Best of Colorado Springs ]

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

Guttmacher Institute, Winter 2012, Volume 15, Number 1

A new report from the Guttmacher Institute shows that, in the past decade, a substantial number of states have shifted from having only a moderate number of abortion restrictions to becoming “overtly hostile” to abortion rights.

The report explains that:

The implications of this shift are enormous. In 2000, the country was almost evenly divided, with nearly a third of American women of reproductive age living in states solidly hostile to abortion rights, slightly more than a third in states supportive of abortion rights and close to a third in middle-ground states. By 2011, however, more than half of women of reproductive age lived in hostile states. This growth came largely at the expense of the states in the middle, and the women who live in them; in 2011, only one in 10 American women of reproductive age lived in a middle-ground state.

Florida is among the states that had moderate abortion rights restrictions as early as the year 2000. Today, the state is solidly in the category of states with “hostile” restrictions, likely due to an influx in anti-abortion legislation in recent years. According to the report, Florida is among the “12 states that had been middle-ground in 2000 [but] had become hostile to abortion rights by 2011.”

In determining which states had shifted, researchers looked into whether states had passed legislation in the past few years that:

• mandated parental involvement prior to a minor’s abortion;
• required preabortion counseling that is medically inaccurate or misleading;
• extended waiting period paired with a requirement that counseling be conducted in-person, thus necessitating two trips to the facility;
• mandated performance of a non–medically indicated ultrasound prior to an abortion;
• prohibited Medicaid funding except in cases of life endangerment, rape or incest;
• restricted abortion coverage in private health insurance plans;
• instituted medically inappropriate restrictions on the provision of medication abortion;
• instituted onerous requirements on abortion facilities that are not related to patient safety;
• instituted an unconstitutional ban on abortions prior to fetal viability or limitations on the circumstances under which an abortion can be performed after viability; or
• instituted a preemptive ban on abortion outright in the event Roe v. Wade is overturned.

Over a third of women of reproductive age lived in states supportive of abortion rights in both 2000 and 2011, 40 percent and 35 percent, respectively. However, the proportion of women living in states hostile to abortion rights increased dramatically, from 31 percent to 55 percent, while the proportion living in middle-ground states shrank, from 29 percent to 10 percent. Altogether, the number of women of reproductive age living in hostile states grew by 15 million over the period, while the number in middle-ground states fell by almost 12 million.

Setting the gatherings in front of Planned Parenthood clinics was meant to underline the coalition’s recent court victory over the local chapter of the women’s health care provider. The Colorado Supreme Court this week dismissed a suit filed by Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, which argued that the title of the initiative the Personhood Coalition submitted to the state was too broad and would confuse voters.

“This victory at the Supreme Court is further confirmation that it is only a matter of time before the equal rights of every human being are recognized under Colorado law,” said Personhood Colorado Director Gualberto Garcia Jones. “With that in mind, we will be taking the fight directly to Planned Parenthood, putting them on notice that the days of aborting Colorado’s preborn babies are nearly over.”

Witnesses estimated that only roughly 20 people attended the rallies at each site, but the move was provocative in a way that has become typical of the intense anti-abortion movement in the United States. Members of the movement see Planned Parenthood as the seat of on-the-ground opposition to ending abortion in the country, often referring to the health care organization as the “mega provider” of the “abortion industry.”

Planned Parenthood Spokesperson Monica McCafferty called the rallies an invasion of patient privacy.

“Our health center is not a stage and our patients deserve what all patients deserve: patient privacy,” she said. “Holding a press conference in front of any health center is quite simply tasteless and disrespectful.”

The personhood initiative seeks to grant full legal rights to fertilized human eggs. It would outlaw abortion in all cases and many of the most popular forms of contraception, including the pill and IUDs. Despite arguments to the contrary, most analysts say the initiative would also put fertilization treatments and research at risk. In attempting to establish legal recognition of human life so early in the biological process, the personhood movement hopes to challenge the 1973 Roe v Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the country.

The Colorado Personhood Coalition must gather roughly 85,000 valid signatures to land their initiative on the November ballot. Large percentages of signatures are often thrown out as invalid for various reasons so initiative groups typically submit almost double that number.

This will be the third attempt to add a personhood amendment to the state constitution. Efforts in 2008 and 2010 lost in landslides at the ballot box.

Last year, citizens in strongly anti-abortion Mississippi voted down a similar initiative, 59 percent to 40 percent.

[ Images: Keith Mason, above, Gualberto Garcia Jones, below, by David Proper, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains ]

Screenshot of NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan (left) debating Americans United for Life President Charmaine Yoest on PBS NewsHour Feb. 23, 2012.

The national anti-abortion-rights group behind Virginia’s controversial ultrasound bill last week released seven new bills it plans to push through state legislatures this year.

For the seventh year in a row, Americans United for Life, a national law and policy group based in Washington, D.C., will publish a collection of what it calls “trend-setting” state-based legislation aimed at adding as many restrictions as possible to abortion. In the last year, governors across the country have signed 28 of these model bills into law, according to AUL.

The Defending Life book of model laws is due to come out in March, but in the midst of last week’s frenzy over the Virginia legislature’s attempt to mandate invasive ultrasounds for women seeking an abortion, AUL released a preview (PDF) of the new book, which includes legislative proposals that could lend themselves to similar controversy if states choose to adopt them.

“[T]he time is right for building on a foundation of success,” Yoest said in a statement on the new proposals. “Many of these initiatives simultaneously lay the groundwork necessary for the ultimate reversal of Roe v. Wade, while also eliminating taxpayer funding of abortion providers.”

Of the seven proposed laws, two are particularly strategic in their goals. One is designed to read like a women’s health protection bill, but its legislative intent is to ban abortion after 20 weeks’ gestation. The other is a model to eliminate public funding to organizations that provide abortions — additionally it would prohibit public funding to groups that have any ties to organizations like Planned Parenthood.

Some medical and legal experts have expressed concern that laws like those being crafted by AUL’s attorneys allow state governments to overreach in restricting abortion. Further concern is that the reasoning behind such laws is based more on politics and ideology than on medical fact.

‘Women’s Health Defense Act’

A new study published this month in the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ medical journal found that childbirth is 14 times more fatal than an induced abortion. The study, authored by two physicians who perform abortions, was a reaction to increasing laws that use the risks of abortion to legislate restrictions. AUL’s new model law — “Women’s Health Defense Act” — is an example of this strategy.

This bill bans abortion after 20 weeks’ gestation. Physicians charged with violating this law would face criminal penalties, including a fine between $10,000 and $100,000 and/or one to 10 years in prison.

The first legislative finding in the bill is a list of 28 different potential risks of abortion, which according to the group, become increasingly dangerous as pregnancy progresses.

From the model law:

Abortion can cause serious physical and psychological (both short- and long-term) complications for women, including but not limited to: uterine perforation, uterine scarring, cervical perforation or other injury, infection, bleeding, hemorrhage, blood clots, failure to actually terminate the pregnancy, incomplete abortion (retained tissue), pelvic inflammatory disease, endometritis, missed ectopic pregnancy, cardiac arrest, respiratory arrest, renal failure, metabolic disorder, shock, embolism, coma, placenta previa in subsequent pregnancies, preterm delivery in subsequent pregnancies, free fluid in the abdomen, organ damage, adverse reactions to anesthesia and other drugs, psychological or emotional complications such as depression, anxiety, sleeping disorders, and death.

AUL also cites a 1987 study by Dr. K.J.S. Anand to support the claim that “substantial and well-documented medical evidence that an unborn child by at least 20 weeks gestation has the capacity to feel pain during an abortion.”

This is the reason most often cited in bills banning abortion after 20 weeks. But this claim is disputed by most of the nation’s large medical communities and is mostly supported by Anand’s study. In the study, which was published by the New England Journal of Medicine, Anand described how “neural pathways for pain” spread to “all cutaneous and mucous surfaces” of an unborn baby by the 20th week of gestation. But he also noted that science did not yet know how a fetus perceives pain at that stage.

In another February Obstetrics & Gynecology article reacting to Elizabeth G. Raymond and David A. Grimes’ pregnancy-abortion study, Dr. Mitchell D. Creinin, a professor and chair in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of California–Davis, argues that using the risks of abortion as a reason to restrict or ban abortion implies that the risks of any given procedure should be a reason to restrict or ban the procedure. In short, he accuses legislators of misrepresenting the realities of medicine and science for a political purpose.

“Is the court going to outlaw pregnancy altogether?” Creinin writes, referring to the fact that severe depression is a risk of pregnancy that is often cited as a possible consequence of abortion and thus a reason to ban it. ”A lack of understanding or misrepresentation of medical data are at the root of what allows many laws that limit abortion to come into existence; the time has come for this to stop.”

In the article, Creinin compares abortion to cigarette smoking and argues that if legislation restricting abortion were really only about safety, the government would most assuredly ban the act of smoking a cigarette.

“Raymond and Grimes report 2,856 deaths over 7 years from pregnancy and 64 deaths over 7 years from abortion. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 443,000 deaths annually from cigarette smoking,” he writes. “Whereas access to abortion is being restricted more and more by legislation that has nothing to do with the existing safety of the procedure, a greater health risk – smoking – is not being restricted in a similar manner. Community laws that prohibit where someone can smoke are not the same type of restriction that limits provision and access to abortion services.”

In 2010, Nebraska started the trend of banning abortion at 20 weeks based on the notion of fetal pain. In 2011, Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, and Oklahoma followed suit. Though none of these laws has been challenged in court, abortion-rights advocates have frequently argued that these bans at 20 weeks are unconstitutional because they conflict with previous Supreme Court rulings that prohibit states from imposing an undue burden on women seeking an abortion before the fetus is considered viable. Last year when Idaho was considering the law, the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Chuck Winder (R-Boise), received an opinion (PDF) from the Idaho attorney general’s office, which said the ban could be unconstitutional, as reported IdahoReporter.com.

Part of the opinion reads:

The Supreme Court has never squarely addressed the constitutionality of legislation that proposes to ban some non-therapeutic abortions prior to viability on the basis of fetal pain. Nevertheless, there is strong reason to believe that Section 5 is unconstitutional under existing precedent, as set forth below. … It follows that Section 5 may well be deemed to evince a legislative intent not only to erect a substantial obstacle to the right to choose a non-therapeutic abortion of a non-viable fetus upon twenty weeks, but to eliminate the right altogether.

‘Defunding the Abortion Industry’

Unlike AUL’s bill banning abortion after 20 weeks, its model for defunding Planned Parenthood is more overt. But its strategy of trying to sever Planned Parenthood’s ties to other organizations that receive public money, such as the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, is less obvious.

The model is called “Defunding the Abortion Industry and Advancing Women’s Health Act of 2012.” This proposed bill would deny state-based family planning grants to organizations that also provide or refer for abortions. In addition, the law would prohibit federal family planning grants from being used to pay the “direct or indirect costs” of abortion procedures, referrals, or counseling.

AUL acknowledges that under federal law, taxpayer money already cannot be used to fund abortion services, but the group argues:

Left unrestricted or unregulated, federal and state funds for family planning services can, in some cases, effectively and indirectly subsidize contractors, individuals, organizations, or entities performing or inducing abortions, referring for abortions, or counseling in favor of abortions through shared administrative costs, overhead, employee salaries, rent, utilities, and various other expenses.

The model law appears to be an attempt to eliminate funding to state affiliates of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the county’s largest network of abortion providers, which each year receives more than $300 million in federal funding to provide low-cost family and planning and sexual health services to underserved communities around the nation.

However, this bill goes beyond defunding abortion providers. Buried in the model law is a provision that attempts to prevent any group that’s in any way “associated” with an organization like Planned Parenthood from receiving public money: “No organization that receives funds authorized or appropriated by the state may use those funds to perform or promote abortions, provide counseling in favor of abortion, or to make referrals for abortions, or may associate with entities that perform, promote, and/or provide counseling or referrals for abortion.”

This is how AUL defines “associate”:

To enter into any written or oral contract or agreement with another contractor, individual, organization, or entity that provides, induces, refers for, or counsels on behalf of abortions; exert any degree of ownership or control over another contractor, individual, organization, or entity that provides, induces, refers for, or counsels on behalf of abortions; or own, direct, or control shares in another contractor, individual, organization, or entity that provides, induces, refers for, or counsels on behalf of abortions.

Ruthann Robson, a professor of law at City University of New York, who is also a blog editor for the Constitutional Law Prof Blog, said that on its face, the law as a whole appears to be constitutionally sound, but that the reference to “written or oral contract or agreement” is a little vague. “Does that mean you can’t say the word [abortion]?” she said.

Robson explained that the 1991 court decision Rust, et al., v. W. Sullivan, Secretary of Health and Human Services, cited extensively throughout AUL’s model legislation, established the principle that it is constitutional for the federal government to prohibit recipients of government funds from advocating, counseling or referring for abortion.

“If the government is giving money, then they can put whatever strings they want on it,” Robson said. “[Organizations] are free not to take the money.”

But another court decision (based on federal cases DKT v. USAID and AOSI v. USAID) established the precedent that states cannot dictate what federally funded organizations can and cannot say. The 2005 policy that sparked the lawsuits dictated that U.S.-based HIV/AIDS-prevention service organizations to denounce prostitution in order to keep receiving federal grants. But federal judges declared that this rule was a violation of free speech.

Americans United for Life did not respond to requests for comment.

‘Overreach’

David J. Garrow, a professor of history and law at the University of Pittsburgh and an oft-quoted abortion scholar said AUL’s model laws are “impressively crafted” but an overreach of government power.

“These laws are, in a technical sense, well written, but whether someone in their right mind should vote for this is another question,” said Garrow, who supports abortion rights. “As we’ve seen so dramatically [last] week in Virginia, it’s a question of overreach.

Both Robson and Garrow told TAI that state lawmakers considering these laws should carefully consider their effects. Garrow said he hopes lawmakers do their own research when reviewing these models.

“Simply the fact that it’s professionally drafted and appropriately decorated doesn’t mean it’s full, fair, and complete,” he said, noting that citations used to support AUL’s legislative findings are selective. As an example, he said that in its bill banning abortions after 20 weeks, AUL referenced the one study that supports the idea of fetal pain without addressing many more studies that don’t.

“Overreach” was also the word of choice for Nancy Keenan, president of the national abortion-rights advocacy group NARAL Pro-Choice America, which led efforts last week to oppose the Virginia ultrasound bill.

“They’ve overreached in Virginia,” Keenan said during a televised debate with AUL’s Charmaine Yoest on PBS NewsHour. “And I think this is a place where a state law is requiring a woman to undergo a procedure she didn’t ask for, nor that her doctor recommended, and that these are politicians that are practicing medicine without a license. … This is not about information, nor is it about consent.”

The debate (similar to another one Keenan and Yoest had last month over Texas’s controversial ultrasound law) was essentially about the necessity of anti-abortion laws that AUL crafts and supports versus the politics of these laws.

Yoest argued that ultrasounds are the “gold standard of medical care prior to an abortion.”

“Look, the chairman of the Americans United For Life’s board is an OB-GYN,” she said. “Our attorneys have been working on this bill, and so I can tell you exactly what it’s all about. Ultrasounds are the gold standard for protecting women’s health. You need to have an ultrasound prior to an abortion in order to determine the gestational age of the baby. You need to know where the baby is located.”

When challenging mandatory ultrasound laws, Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers have often argued that ultrasounds are standard protocol, used before or during the abortion when recommended by the physician, and available if the patient requests it. Where abortion providers and abortion-rights advocates objected to the Virginia bill was that the legislative language mandated a trans-vaginal ultrasound in instances where they might not be required based on medical necessity.

During the NewsHour discussion, Yoest contradicted her own argument that using legislation to require an ultrasound before an abortion was necessary to ensure that a woman receives an ultrasound before an abortion. Responding to host Judy Woodruff’s comment that Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell himself believed the law mandated an invasive procedure, Yoest argued that abortion providers at Planned Parenthood already perform ultrasound scans before abortions.

“So then why do you need the state law?” Keenan asked?

Watch the full exchange:

Watch Va. Proposal Mandating Ultrasound Before Abortion Debated on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

But beyond Virginia’s law, Woodruff wanted to know if AUL’s model legislation generally is part of a coordinated effort to restrict abortion access across America.

“What is the goal of these state-by-state efforts, Charmaine Yoest?” she asked. “Is it to get as close as possible to practically overturn Roe vs. Wade? What would you say is the goal?”

“I think it’s responding to the fact that the majority of the American people say that they’re pro-life,” Yoest said. “And there’s a huge consensus in this country on commonsense regulations on abortion like sonograms. Sonogram laws are – in 22 states have passed because the American people think this is commonsense things that we can all agree on no matter what your opinion on abortion is. Informed consent, parental consent, these are things that the American people do agree on.”

Garrow told TAI that AUL’s legislative strategy is effective because of its subtlety. Together, all of these model laws make abortion increasingly more and more restrictive, leading up to, as AUL’s Charmaine Yoest has admitted, “the ultimate reversal of Roe v. Wade.” But unlike proposed “personhood” laws — which would define life at conception, effectively criminalizing abortion and potentially some forms of birth control and fertility treatments — laws banning late-term abortion and regulating abortion clinics are less controversial and thus more likely to win support by the public and by lawmakers.

Referring to AUL senior counsel Clarke Forsythe and James Bopp, Jr., another prominent anti-abortion attorney, Garrow said, “They are very politically astute and adept at focusing on margins and keeping the super-ultra crazies boxed out.”

“But I’m a little surprised that they would show their hand quite so publicly,” he added, referring to AUL’s public release of its model laws. “I would think they would want to make them seem homegrown rather than farmed out from D.C.”

Banner photo: Flickr Getty Images/Dave Delay

“[It's] an opportunity to take a stand against the unceasing attacks on women’s health care levied by the Leadership of the House of Representatives and their colleagues in the U.S. Senate,” DeGette’s office said in a release.

The speeches begin at noon in Washington and will be streamed live on C-Span. Women’s Health Wednesdays will run until the end of the year.

DeGette, head of the congressional pro-choice caucus, has been a lead opponent of the anti-abortion legislation that has featured as a top priority in the Republican-dominated 112th Congress, which opened in January of last year and will end in January of 2013. Because abortion is legal in the United States, the bills have sought to limit access to the medical procedure by cutting back on women’s reproductive health services generally, by slashing federal funds for Planned Parenthood clinics, for instance, and limiting insurance coverage for full-range family planning and contraception.

In an extended floor exchange on a bill called the “Protect Life Act” last October, DeGette said she felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole into a world “where logic has been turned on its head.”

“When I listen to this debate, it’s really clear to me that the proponents of this bill, their main concern is not federal funding of abortion,” she said. “Their main concern is they want abortion to be illegal, and so here’s my view– having debated this now for 15 years in this body– here’s my view: If the majority wants to pass a bill banning abortion, pass a bill banning abortion, and we’ll fight it out in the courts. Don’t make claims that there is somehow federal funding for abortion when in fact there is none in order to confuse the issues and to try to confuse the American public.”

Today, in her inaugural Women’s Health Wednesday speech, DeGette plans to address birth control as “critical preventive care,” as she put it in the release sent out this morning.

“Ninety-nine percent of women have used birth control at some point in their life and 15 million of them use it for non-contraceptive purposes,” it reads. “The Institute of Medicine made a scientific determination that access to contraception is a critical component of preventive women’s health care.”

Abortion-policy analysts have said Republicans last year effectively ended the truce that has existed for decades among lawmakers regarding public funding for abortion. Federal funding is now and has been for years restricted to pregnancies that endanger the mother’s life or that come as the product of rape and/or incest.

The “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” introduced in the first wave of legislation last year by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), set the bar with provisions meant to eliminate tax breaks on insurance policies that cover abortions, permanently prohibit tax-funded abortions across all federal programs, like Medicaid, and end funding for abortions in Washington D.C.

The bill originally aimed to recast the definition of “rape” in order to lower the number of pregnancies eligible for funding. Smith proposed that only “forcible” rape pregnancies would fall into the funding category. “Forcible” rape is not a legal term, however, and so the bill seemed designed to rule out statutory rape, date rape, rapes of drugged victims and so on. The provision caused an uproar among groups that asked what kind of rape there is other than “forcible” and the language was ultimately stripped from the bill.

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

These centers use various methods to attract women facing unplanned pregnancies, such as offering free pregnancy tests, locating next to abortion clinics, advertising for abortion services, and intercepting online searches for abortion on the Web.

But an emerging trend is for states to push women through these centers’ doors as part of new legislation that increases waiting times and mandates pre-abortion ultrasounds, something CPCs increasingly offer.

Last year, South Dakota passed a controversial anti-abortion law requiring women to visit anti-abortion pregnancy centers for counseling before they can receive an abortion. A federal judge blocked the law — which also mandated a 72-hour waiting period –after Planned Parenthood sued the state on the grounds that the law created an unconstitutional burden on a woman’s right to an abortion. On Wednesday, a state Senate committee is scheduled to hear a revised version of the bill, which still requires women to seek counseling at anti-abortion pregnancy centers but demands that the counselors be licensed.

Another anti-abortion law in Texas, which recently went into effect after surviving the majority of legal challenges lodged against it, provides women wanting to have an abortion with a list of state-sanctioned places to obtain a sonogram, a list that includes crisis pregnancy centers.

South Dakota and Texas are just two states where CPCs are slowly gaining more political power, taxpayer funding, and legitimacy from lawmakers. And with the growing movement of state legislatures adopting abortion laws that require women to first undergo an ultrasound, it is likely that these centers will begin to play an even bigger role in a woman’s unplanned pregnancy.

‘Pregnancy Resource Center Month’

In the U.S., there are approximately 4,000 crisis pregnancy centers, the bulk of which are affiliated with one of three CPC networks: Heartbeat International, Care Net, and the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates. Each has ties to political organizations that have lobbied for anti-abortion legislation.

A legislative trend sweeping the country is the enactment of resolutions that “honor” crisis pregnancy centers. Last month, the Florida Legislature passed a bill that declared January “Pregnancy Resource Center Month” and commended “the compassionate work of the volunteers and staff at Florida’s pregnancy resource centers.” Ohio’s legislature passed similar legislation last month.

Several states passed pro-CPC resolutions last year, including Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Missouri, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Oklahoma passed a pro-CPC resolution in 2010.

In these resolutions, much of the language was lifted straight from model legislation (PDF) developed by Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion policy group based in Washington, D.C. AUL’s resolution calls for recognizing services these centers have provided to citizens for free – services like baby supplies, referrals for public services and anti-abortion counseling. But a key provision, which has generally made it into the states’ version of these resolutions, is:

That the [Legislature] disapproves of the actions of any national, state, or local groups attempting to prevent pregnancy care centers from effectively serving women and men facing unplanned pregnancies.

This provision subtly refers to efforts at national, state and local levels to regulate crisis pregnancy centers, in response to allegations that these centers sometimes mislead women about what services they offer and provide them with misinformation about abortion, pregnancy, and contraception.

For instance, in Washington state, legislation was introduced last year that would require CPCs to be explicit about what services they do and don’t offer. It would also prohibit these centers from withholding medical records, such as pregnancy test results, from clients. The bill text was partially influenced by a report (PDF) co-authored by women’s rights group Legal Voice and the policy arm of the Northwest Planned Parenthood affiliate. Undercover investigators documented evidence of CPCs withholding medical records. According to the report: “Care Net in Gig Harbor and Tacoma provided volunteers with paperwork stating that it had the right under RCW 70.02.090 to withhold a person’s medical records if the center reasonably believes the information will be used to obtain an abortion. Care Net in Puyallup provided paperwork stating that it would be ‘illegal’ for a patient to use medical records generated by Care Net for the purpose of ‘abortion or abortion-related services.’”

These measures have generally been unsuccessful. Ordinances requiring CPCs to post signage stating that they do not offer abortion services were overturned in Baltimore and New York. And a federal bill that would authorize the Federal Trade Commission to fine organizations that falsely advertise as resources for abortion services has been reintroduced into Congress every year since 2007 with little movement. A similar bill passed in San Francisco last year but is being challenged in federal court.

Another provision in AUL’s pro-CPC resolution model, which is featured in Ohio’s bill, could serve as a portal for crisis pregnancy centers to obtain public money:

That we encourage the Congress of the United States and other federal and state government agencies to grant pregnancy resource centers assistance for medical equipment and abstinence education in a manner that does not compromise the mission or religious integrity of these organizations.

It is a state version of a federal bill regularly reintroduced by U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), which would authorize the Department of Health and Human Services to allocate money for ultrasound equipment to tax-exempt organizations that provide free medical services to pregnant women – a classification that applies to most CPCs.

An (ultra)sound strategy

With more states mandating that women obtain sonograms sometimes 24 hours before a scheduled abortion, going to a crisis pregnancy center that will do the ultrasound for free is an attractive option, especially for women on a tight budget.

Speaking at a pro-life conference hosted by the D.C.-based Family Research Council last month, Karen Snuffer, the executive director of a group of Virginia-based pregnancy resource centers affiliated with Care Net, said her centers serve more than 17,000 women and their families annually and “provide $1.1 million in free goods and services, including 2,900 ultrasounds, free of charge, by medical professionals.”

“Like centers all around the country, Care Net PRCs represent hope to these women and their families, and we do that because we have access to many resources within the community,” Snuffer said.

An FRC study (PDF) of 1,969 crisis pregnancy centers in the U.S., found that in 2010, about 230,000 ultrasounds were performed – at no or very little charge to the client – at 1,000 centers, for an estimated total cost savings of $57.5 million. (To get this statistic, FRC estimated each ultrasound at $250.)

Founded in 1993, the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates was the first CPC network to promote ultrasounds in crisis pregnancy centers; ultrasounds were seen as a new, persuasive tool to talk women out of abortions. Additionally, centers that offered ultrasound services could now be considered medical centers, giving CPCs more legitimacy. Then, in 2004, Focus on the Family started the Option Ultrasound Program, which – in tandem with a medical consultant from NIFLA – provides funding grants to pregnancy centers to obtain ultrasound machines and convert their centers to medical-style clinics.

Based in Colorado Springs and founded by James C. Dobson in 1977, Focus on the Family has grown into a $100 million tax-exempt nonprofit. In its fiscal year ending September 2010 (PDF), the group reported giving about $900,000 to about 50 CPCs for either ultrasound machines or ultrasound training. Option Ultrasound’s purpose is to convert “pregnancy resource centers” into “pregnancy medical clinics.” Medical services at these centers are usually confined to “limited obstetrical ultrasound services” and over-the-counter pregnancy tests.

Focus defines a pregnancy medical clinic as:

a medical clinic that operates under the supervision of a licensed physician and nurse manager. A PMC [pregnancy medical clinic] offers pregnancy tests, limited obstetrical ultrasound services and peer counseling to women facing an unintended pregnancy. As well, some may offer STI testing/treatment and/or prenatal care. A PMC may also offer additional support services or refer women to helpful community programs, but the focus is on providing medical services for abortion-risk women.

By contrast, a regular pregnancy resource center, according to Focus:

offers pregnancy tests, peer counseling and other supportive services to women who are facing an unintended pregnancy, which may include childbirth education and parenting classes, adoption counseling and support, post-abortion support, and practical support such as maternity/baby clothing, diapers, and furniture.

Focus on the Family demands that grant recipients undergo ultrasound training, operate the ultrasounds only under the direction of a licensed physician, and comply with the national standards defined by the American Institute of Ultrasound Medicine. Focus puts up 80 percent of the costs of the ultrasound machine (between $21,000 and $33,000) and sonography training (between $13,000 and $17,000).

As of Jan. 31, 2012, Focus reports funding 396 grants for ultrasound machines and 140 for sonography training. The group asserts that since the program began in 2004, “the estimated number of babies saved is more than 120,000 precious lives!”

“These mothers will likely never forget the day they first saw the image of their baby, kicking her feet and waving her arms on the ultrasound monitor,” reads an article on the Option Ultrasound website titled, “How Option Ultrasound Helps At-Risk Women.” “They will recall the day that their hearts were changed, with gratitude they can hardly put into words, and they will be forever thankful that they had the opportunity to choose life, all because someone cared enough to give them the option of seeing their baby on an ultrasound.”

The efficacy of sonograms as abortion-deterrents has been challenged by new research.

Political connections

Heartbeat International, previously named Alternatives to Abortion, was the first of the crisis pregnancy center networks to arrive on the scene, in 1971. It was followed by Care Net, which was founded in 1975 as the Christian Action Council, a Washington, D.C.-based evangelical organization that at the time functioned as a lobbying organization, according to a 2009 report (PDF) on pregnancy resource centers produced by the Family Resource Council.

On its website, Care Net refers to its approach to abortion as “a refreshingly apolitical and practical approach to reducing abortions in North America.” But the organization’s affiliations and its founding as a lobbying group suggest a more political identity. Care Net’s “board of references,” for example, includes Beverly LaHaye, who chairs the national lobby group Concerned Women for America and is now part of presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s “Faith Leader Dream Team.”

Heartbeat International’s board of directors includes Charles A. Donovan, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, which is one of the most active anti-abortion lobbying groups in the country. Donovan, who previously worked for Ronald Reagan’s administration and the Family Research Council, now works the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Another political player on Heartbeat’s board is Derek A. McCoy, president of the Maryland Family Council, a Focus on the Family affiliate that lobbies for anti-abortion legislation in Maryland. McCoy is also on the board of directors for the anti-abortion media group Life Always, which provoked a firestorm last year for erecting racially charged billboards in overwhelmingly black communities, with messages like, “The most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb” and, next to image of Barack Obama’s face, “Every 21 minutes, our next possible leader is aborted.”

NIFLA was initially founded, according to FRC, as a legal support system for pregnancy centers to defend against the types of laws that seek to regulate CPCs. On NIFLA’s National Advisory Council sit James D. Bopp, Jr., attorney at Bopp, Coleson & Bostrom, and Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver, both of whom defend anti-abortion laws that are challenged in court. NIFLA’s advisory council also includes representatives from Americans United for Life and Concerned Women for America and Virginia state Rep. Robert Marshall (R-Manassas), who sponsored Virginia’s controversial personhood bill that passed the state House last week.

Taxpayer subsidies

Back in January, Karen Snuffer boasted that the Virginia CPCs she oversees take in “no government funding whatsoever.” But many CPCs – which are generally tax-exempt 501(c)3 groups – do receive state taxpayer money.

Several state health departments allocate money for CPCs as part of programs that promote alternatives to abortion. For instance, Texas’ seven-year-old “Alternatives to Abortion” program got a $300,000 bump last year, for a total of $8.3 million, after the state legislature cut family-planning funding from about $112 million to $38 million and reduced funding for the social-service programs. Florida’s legislature recently voted to maintain $2 million in funding for the state’s CPC network, for the seventh year in a row, after making deep cuts to community health services.

During the George W. Bush administration, CPCs benefited handsomely from federal grant funding for abstinence-only education programs. The Obama administration cut most of those abstinence-only programs, but CPCs can still receive federal funding through the National Fatherhood Initiative, which each year gives $25,000 “capacity building” grants to 25 community groups, as Sarah Poster has reported. Award recipients in 2011 included Care Net Pregnancy Resource Center in Rapid City, S.D., which is one of the CPCs approved by the state to disuade women under South Dakota’s new law. This Care Net affiliate is also one of the CPCs defending the South Dakota law in court. Other subsidized CPCs include Sav-A-Life, Inc., in Birmingham, Ala., and Women’s Hope Medical Clinic in Auburn, Ala.

In the past few years, a series of investigative reports by journalists, congressional committees (PDF), and abortion-rights groups like NARAL Pro-Choice America and the National Abortion Federation (PDF) have raised serious questions about crisis pregnancy centers.

The directors of most of the major CPC networks would not respond to repeated requests for comment from The American Independent about their organizations. A spokesperson for Heartbeat International told TAI that all the information we needed to know was on its website.

At FRC’s pro-life conference last month, Rebecca Lewis, who worked for a Care Net-affiliated crisis pregnancy center in Alexandria, Va., for nine years (as a volunteer for five years and a director for four), told TAI that she appreciates that people are digging into CPCs — to keep them honest. But she said she didn’t see the sort of unethical tactics at her center that CPCs are often accused of.

“I didn’t see that where I was,” Lewis said, when asked whether her center engaged in misinformation or misrepresentation.

Lewis said her center stood for the idea that if a woman has a choice to have an abortion, she should also have a choice not to have one. She said her volunteers were taught not be judgmental of the women coming in. And the women who chose not to have an abortion were given services and material support and tracked for at least a year, Lewis said.

“We do not condemn a person who has an abortion,” she said. “I never made them feel small.”

Radiance Foundation co-founder Ryan Bomberger speaking at the Family Research Council's ProLifeCon, Jan. 23, 2012 (AMERICAN INDEPENDENT/Sofia Resnick)

FRC President Tony Perkins opened the annual ProLifeCon, claiming that an estimated 54 million abortions have taken place since the procedure became legal four decades ago.

“Where’s the moral outrage in America today?” Perkins said.

Gerard Nadal — an anti-abortion activist, blogger and microbiologist — demonstrated some of that outrage, as he accused Planned Parenthood of spreading sexually transmitted diseases and accused the medical community of what he termed “aggressive eugenics.” It’s Nadal’s contention that most doctors only recommend abortion when faced with anticipated genetic disorders or fetal anomalies.

“Doctors will tell woman, ‘If you don’t abort, then I’m not going to treat you,’” Nadal said.

“The one thing that’s become crystal clear is we’re no longer arguing a woman’s right to choose,” he continued. “I long for the good old days of arguing whether a woman has a right to choose abortion. Right now what’s happening in medicine is physicians are not putting on the table what a woman’s options are; they’re just telling a woman, ‘You need to get rid of this baby.’”

Gerard Nadal, anti-abortion activist and molecular biologist, speaking at the Family Research Council's ProLifeCon, Jan. 23, 2012 (AMERICAN INDEPENDENT/Sofia Resnick)

Nadal recently co-founded the Council on Poor Prenatal Diagnoses & Therapeutic Intervention, and on Saturday FRC hosted this group’s first national conference, which involved several physicians, scientists and parents of children with disabilities painting the picture that most doctors are eugenicists. Nadal told The American Independent his organization will spend the next 18 months aggressively conducting research in order to influence public policy. The council is looking into birth control as well as abortion.

Two U.S. representatives spoke at the FRC forum: freshman Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.) and 16-term Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), who last year sponsored a controversial bill that among other things would prohibit state health exchanges created by Obama’s health-care reform bill from covering abortion services, with limited exceptions.

Smith co-chairs the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, which condemned the Obama administration’s recent mandate that insurance plans will eventually have to cover family planning services, including emergency contraception.

“Obama is the enemy of life, as is his people,” Smith said. ”The past three years of abortion extremism by President Obama is a mere foretaste of what will be if he is reelected. Mr. Obama’s abortion extremism will significantly worsen in a second term.”

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., speaking at the Family Research Council's ProLifeCon, Jan. 23, 2012 (AMERICAN INDEPENDENT/Sofia Resnick)

Another outspoken anti-abortion congressman is Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), who was not at the FRC conference but is expected this week to introduce a bill that would ban abortions in the District of Columbia after 20 weeks, with limited exceptions. Late last year, Franks introduced a federal bill that would criminalize doctors who fail to prove that an abortion was not related to the anticipated sex or race of the child.

Jeanne Monahan, FRC’s director for the Center for Human Dignity, closed the conference with discussion of crisis pregnancy centers, which counsel against abortion and do not offer or refer for contraceptive services. Many of the more than 4,000 CPCs across the nation, which are usually affiliated with one of three networks — Care Net, Heartbeat International, and the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates – have received federal or state funding either through the Choose Life license plate program active in many states or to teach abstinence-only sex-education classes.

On Monday FRC released a new study (PDF) on CPCs in America, an updated version of its 2009 report. Monahan said that among FRC’s findings was that in 2010, CPCs saved the government $100 million by providing free services like pregnancy tests and ultrasound screenings. Monahan said several times that the $100 million is a “very conservative estimate.”

Last year, the Guttmacher Institute released a report claiming that unintended pregnancies cost American taxpayers roughly $11.1 billion each year.

You can watch the entire conference recorded by FRC here.

Photo: Family Research Council seal on FRC’s Values Voters Bus, Jan. 23, 2012 (AMERICAN INDEPENDENT/Sofia Resnick)

An ultrasound machine (source: Flickr/redjar)

A new survey released from the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health found that “strong majorities” of Latina/os registered to vote support “access to legal abortion, affirm that they would offer support to a close friend or family member who had an abortion, and oppose politicians interfering in personal, private decisions about abortion,” the group reports.

The research, which was conducted by Lake Research Partners, was part of a national survey of 600 registered Latina/o voters. The survey asked nuanced questions regarding abortion rights, questions were asked in English and Spanish and it included about 200 surveys conducted via cell phone.

According to the polling data (PDF):

• A strong majority of Latino registered voters (74 percent) agrees that a woman has a right to make her own personal, private decisions about abortion without politicians interfering.
• Nearly three in four Latino registered voters (73 percent) agree that we should not judge someone who feels they are not ready to be a parent.
• Two‐thirds of Latino voters (67 percent) say they would give support to a close friend or family member who had an abortion.
• Most Latino voters seem willing to disagree with church leaders on the legality of abortion.
• Finally, a majority of Latino voters agree that money should not determine access to abortion.

This past year, an anti-abortion rights group prepared to launch a billboard campaign in Los Angeles targeting Latinas. The billboards were to say in both English and Spanish that “the most dangerous place for a Latino is in the womb.”

The group behind the billboard is the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles. The organization’s billboards are an almost word-for-word copy of billboards from a Texas-based group called Heroic Media that targeted African-American women. Heroic Media’s billboard’s said, “The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb.”

The National Latina Institute issued a press release immediately following news of the billboards, denouncing them. The group said, “These offensive billboards are nothing more than political ploys designed to stigmatize Latina women and communities of color and restrict access to reproductive health care.”

Loretta Ross, national coordinator for SisterSong, told The Florida Independent that the billboards are a “vicious attack on Latinas.” The billboards were eventually brought down.

In Colorado, a personhood amendment is expected to come before voters in November.

In 2011, 26 states enacted 69 laws that in some way restricted access to abortions or reduced funding for family planning services (what NARAL calls “anti-choice” laws), said NARAL President Nancy Keenan, who told reporters that NARAL has been tracking abortion-rights-related legislation since 1995. And since that time, NARAL has calculated that 713 anti-abortion laws have been passed across America. The record year for highest number of abortion-related legislation passed in a single year was 1999, with 70 laws, just one more than last year, Keenan said.

“Last year, we predicted that our opponents would ignore the public’s call to focus on the nation’s immediate challenges, such as the economy,” Keenan said. “Sadly for women, our predictions came true at near record levels. Lawmakers waged a War on Women, and as a result, women in many states will see more political interference in their personal, private medical decisions.”

Hope for abortion rights last year, Keenan said, came from vetoes of anti-abortion bills by the Democratic governors of Minnesota and Montana; U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) describing — on the House floor — a late-term abortion she had due to health reasons, effectively humanizing the debate; and Mississippi voters rejecting a state constitutional amendment that would have outlawed abortion and potentially outlawed in-vitro fertilization and certain forms of birth control.

In 2011, Arizona, Florida, and Kansas enacted the most anti-abortion legislation in 2011, with five measures each, according to the NARAL report. Florida was among 21 states to receive an “F” on women’s reproductive rights. NARAL gave the nation as a whole a “D.” The 2012 “report card” can be viewed here (PDF).

Donna Crane, policy director of NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation (NARAL’s 501(c)3 arm) told reporters that 2012 could be a record-breaking year for anti-abortion legislation. She explained that NARAL has labeled seven states “fully pro-choice” because in these states Democrats control the governor’s office and both state houses; 19 states have been labeled “fully anti-choice” because in these states Republicans control the governor’s office and both state houses; and 25 states are “mixed-choice.”

Based on this assumption and recent legislative trends related to abortion, NARAL suggests that in 2012:

• 36 states could introduce mandatory ultrasound laws.
• 28 states could introduce bans on private insurance coverage of abortion
• 38 states could introduce “copycat” legislation first introduced in Nebraska in 2010 that bans abortions after 20 weeks without any exceptions.
• 40 states could introduce laws that would penalize doctors who fail to determine if race or sex is a factor in a woman’s decision to terminate her pregnancy.
• 33 states could introduce legislation prohibiting abortion providers like Planned Parenthood from receiving state funds for other health services they provide.
• 5 states — Oregon, California, Nevada, Colorado and Ohio — could Florida and Montana in Personhood-style amendment initiatives.

Lissy Moskowitz, deputy policy director of NARAL, said that federal legislative trends expected to be carried over in 2012 include attempts to strip federal family planning funding from abortion providers, to prohibit any insurance coverage — even private — of abortion services, to enact federal race-/sex-selective abortion legislation, and to dismantle parts of Obama’s health-care reform act that guarantee coverage of gynecological exams, birth control and emergency contraception. Moskowitz noted that in 2011 the House of Representatives voted on abortion-related issues eight times, compared with one time in 2010, three times in 2009, zero times in 2008, and two times in 2007 and 2006.

The NARAL representatives also pointed out that if any one of the current GOP presidential candidates unseats President Obama in November, the above federal laws would have a much greater chance of succeeding. Last night in Greenville, S.C., all the candidates but frontrunner Mitt Romney attended an anti-abortion presidential forum sponsored by Personhood USA, during which Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum stated support for personhood-style amendments without exceptions for rape or incest and promised to veto any piece of legislation that includes family-planning funding for abortion providers.

NARAL has created a graphic look of anti-abortion legislation in 2011 compared to other years here. All the information in the report is available here.

The same day NARAL released its report, anti-abortion-rights policy group Americans United for Life released its own 2012 rankings, based on which states enacted the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in 2011. Unsurprisingly, AUL ranked Louisiana its best state in “protecting life,” while NARAL ranked Louisiana its worst state in supporting reproductive rights. AUL’s worst state is Washington, which is NARAL’s second-best state. NARAL ‘s best state is California, which was ranked second-worst by AUL.

]]> http://coloradoindependent.com/110404/anti-abortion-measures-gaining-steam-around-the-country/feed 1 http://coloradoindependent.com/110284/perry-exit-planned-to-boost-anti-romney-gingich-vote http://coloradoindependent.com/110284/perry-exit-planned-to-boost-anti-romney-gingich-vote#comments Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:59:29 +0000 John Tomasic http://coloradoindependent.com/?p=110284 arch job-killing vulture capitalist, and after Romney declined to appear last night at an anti-abortion forum in Greenville.]]> Texas Governor Rick Perry will end his limping bid for the presidency with an announcement scheduled this morning, just two days before voters go to the polls in the crucial South Carolina Republican primary. The timing is aimed to boost support for Newt Gingrich, whose popularity among voters has been climbing again after he unleashed a barrage of attacks on Romney over the last two weeks, painting him as an arch job-killing vulture capitalist, and after Romney declined to appear last night at an anti-abortion forum in Greenville.

There has been no announcement yet from the Colorado Perry campaign, which is headed by Republican US Rep Mike Coffman (CD6). Coffman embraced Perry early in the race but has seemed to distance himself from the candidate as Perry clearly struggled on the national stage. Coffman faces reelection this year in a district recently remade from a GOP stronghold into a competitive district divided roughly equally among independent, Republican and Democratic voters.

CNN broke the news of the coming Perry announcement but Politico offered a cautionary note, referring to the disarray of the Perry campaign that has made his candidacy unpredictable.

“The discord in Perryworld was evident even as the candidate prepared to drop out.

“Top officials in Texas said they were unaware of his intentions and as late as this morning said they genuinely didn’t know whether he was still running.”

The news will come as a disappointment for a bloc of conservatives led by Erick Erickson at national Tea Party blog RedState, who have embraced Perry as a true conservative while excoriating his staff as incompetent.

Erickson wrote this morning of the inevitable end of the Perry campaign, forecasting coming events.

In a post titled “Hero or Spoiler,” he lamented the turn the primary has taken, where unreliably conservative Romney is marching to the nomination, in part because his opponents have split the anti-Romney Tea Party vote.

Yesterday, I argued that Rick Perry should leave the GOP primary in advance of Saturday’s election and endorse Newt Gingrich, who is the most logical fit in the existing field for a Perry endorsement.

The Perry campaign responded that the race would be decided by voters, not pundits behind a computer.

Fair enough. Rick Perry does not want to be seen as a quitter. But quit he will. I do not want him to quit. I urged him to stay in the race. But sadly his campaign has been unable to get the second look I thought it deserved…

It may suck, but it is reality. And we are forced at times like this to deal with reality. The reality is that Rick Perry will be quitting the race, but he is not quitting the fight, which has always been more important…

It’s not like I relish taking this position. I introduced Rick Perry at the 2011 RedState Gathering as the next President of the United States. He remains the best qualified man to be President. I would be thrilled to have him as my President. But he is polling in last place and there are three days to go. It isn’t going to happen.

But throwing his support to one of the other non-Romney candidates could help that person win.

Rick Perry will quit…. The question is whether he will quit before Saturday’s primary and help someone else win as a hero and king maker, or will he quit next week and see Mitt Romney win with Perry serving as the spoiler, keeping either Gingrich or Santorum from winning.

Perry’s joining the race for the nomination last fall generated great enthusiasm but his repeat gaffes and clear casting about on foreign policy questions conjured a sort of caricature version of George W Bush, the last Texas governor to win the White House and a man whose recently past presidency remains deeply controversial and unpopular among Americans on the right and left.

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.