Jared Polis knows legal abortions keep women safe

Sarah Huntzinger gave her biased position away by her choice of words. There is no “proabortion lobby” no one is proabortion but many of us are prochoice. An antichoice governor (my bias) who supports making safe abortion less available does indeed put women’s health at risk.

I am an 82 year old woman who remembers when desperate young women used coat hangers or had abortions in dirty, unsafe conditions before safe abortions became legal.

Do we really want to go back to that? Do we want to elect politicians who ignorantly believe that by making safe abortions unavailable it will mean fewer abortions?

I spent many years leading groups where I heard women’s stories and not once did I hear anyone say they were proabortion. But many were thankful for safe abortion. I’ll spare you the sometimes horrific reasons some of them chose to exercise a right that could leave them sterile or end their life.

For someone concerned with ethics and the lifting up of women’s voices, it’s surprising Huntzinger would so egregiously misrepresent the issue of reproductive health care in her recent opinion piece.

To clarify, when Jared Polis says mortality would increase if Walker Stapleton were governor, he’s talking about Stapleton’s blatant disregard for the fundamental rights and health care needs of the women of Colorado.

While statistics about mortality around childbirth are alarming and important, Huntzinger injects them into her piece as a distraction against the reality that under Stapleton, Colorado would not be the safe space for abortion care that it would continue to be under Polis.

We have an obligation to not get sidetracked in the public discourse around this conversation. Abortion care is on the line, and Coloradans have a right to honest information about what’s at stake. We need leaders who understand that abortion care is health care. Period.

Women’s lives are at risk when elected leaders will not protect access to abortion.

According to the World Health Organization 470,000 women die due to illegal (and unsafe) abortions worldwide. This equals around 13 percent of international maternal mortality rates.

Abortion care in our country is safe today because it’s legal. Following Roe v. Wade providers were able to get training. Sadly, access to this care has been eroded by more than 400 state legislative restrictions on abortion care.

The issue is simple. When health care providers can’t do their job or aren’t available anymore, risks to people’s health and lives goes up. Without access to care, women are left to do what they feel they must, like selfinducing abortions, going without pregnancy care, going back to a dangerous situation.

Women’s lives do depend on access to safe and legal abortion and leaders who will protect it.

I look forward to casting my vote in November for Jared Polis, in no small measure for his continued support of women’s rights, including a woman’s right to choose. Send letters of 250 words or fewer to openforum@denverpost.com or 5990 Washington St., Denver, CO, 80216. Please include full name, city and phone number. Contact information is for our purposes only; we will not share it with anyone else. You can reach us by telephone at 3039541201.