It’s not a good day when you’re a conservative Republican and can’t even get your anti-abortion bill out of the Republican-controlled Senate.
But that’s what happened Thursday, and to be honest, it wasn’t a surprise. Two Republicans joined with their Democratic colleagues this morning to kill an anti-abortion measure carried by Sens. Kevin Lundberg of Berthoud and Vicki Marble of Fort Collins.
The bill, known as the Women’s Reproductive Information Guarantee for Health and Transparency (RIGHT) Act, requires women to wait at least 24 hours after initially seeking an abortion. Doctors must inform the woman about long-term physical and psychological risks, a description of abortion reversal procedures (which is not scientifically-based or backed by the nation’s leading ob/gyn organizations), as well as information on the father’s liability for child support.
Groups like Planned Parenthood say the bill is just another effort to restrict or block women’s access to abortion services. A similar bill ran in the House last year and was killed in the the House Health, Insurance and Environment Committee.
Today’s bill died when two Republicans, Sens. Beth Martinez-Humenik of Thornton and Don Coram of Montrose, voted against the measure with the Senate’s 17 Democrats*, and the bill died on a 19 to 16 vote.
Martinez-Humenik represents a district that is more or less evenly divided among Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliated voters, and is no stranger to opposing this measure; she was the deciding vote to kill a similar bill in 2015 in the Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee. This year, the bill went through the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee and won passage on a 3-2 party-line vote. The bill might have normally gone to the health committee, but that’s where Martinez-Humenik is its vice-chair.
Photo: Sen. Kevin Lundberg of Berthoud
Correction: earlier version incorrectly said Martinez-Humenik and Coram voted with 17 Republicans.
