Protecting our reproductive freedoms in Garfield County
The vast majority of Americans value the freedom to decide when, if, and how we have children. We want our loved ones to have access to the reproductive care they need. Even in red states like Ohio and Kentucky, recent ballot measures reveal broad common ground on this issue.
Regrettably, many lawmakers have been out of sync with their constituents and opposing measures to protect access to contraception, fertility treatments, and abortion.
In addition to the twenty-one state legislatures that have passed anti-abortion laws in the last couple years, over 70 American cities and counties have enacted local abortion bans. Counties in Texas have made it a crime to use local roads to drive someone to get an abortion. Counties in New Mexico have made it a crime for mail carriers to deliver abortion-related medications within county lines.
Anti-abortion activists like Mark Lee Dickson are on a mission to create “sanctuary cities for the unborn” across the nation. He’s now targeting cities and counties in states like ours where abortion remains legal, hoping for a legal battle that would ultimately land in the Supreme Court, which is friendly to the anti-abortion cause.
While it may seem improbable that Garfield County commissioners would take action to restrict access to contraception or abortion in our county, the commissioners are certainly on a roll with inserting themselves into issues that, until recently, were outside the scope of our local politicians.
In March the commissioners weighed in on the issue of immigration, passing a non-sanctuary resolution filled with divisive and xenophobic language about immigrants.
In February, in response to a small, vocal group pushing to restrict access to certain library books, the commissioners decided to give themselves more authority in relation to our libraries. They passed a resolution outlining an “alternative (library) trustee appointment process”
so that they could “take control” over all library trustee appointments.
Just five months earlier, the commissioners had published a press release explaining that the authority to administer decisions regarding a special district like the library district “lies with the board appointed by the special districts, and not the county commissioners.” Concerns about library policy, the press release states, should be “directed to the library district board.” Through their February resolution, they put the power to influence library policies into their own hands.
Candidates for county commissioner often hide their unpopular views and avoid answering questions by saying that certain issues are outside the scope of their responsibilities. Given the BOCC’s recent decisions to expand their scope, we would be wise to find out sooner rather than later where the candidates stand on important issues like reproductive freedom.
I asked all the commissioner candidates their position on proposition 89 to protect Coloradans’ access to abortion. Democratic candidates Caitlin Carey and Steven Arauza responded that they support this initiative and are committed to protecting access to reproductive healthcare. The two Republican candidates did not respond. But their voting records are revealing.
Candidate Mike Samson bent to the pressures of anti-abortion activists and voted to pull funding from our local Planned Parenthood in 2012 and again in 2015.
Just last year, Candidate Perry Will voted against reproductive freedom multiple times in the state legislature. He even opposed Colorado’s Deceptive Trade Practices bill, which makes it illegal for “crisis pregnancy centers” to falsely advertise that they provide abortions or emergency contraceptives when they actually only push girls and women to continue their pregnancies. Will voted to allow these centers to continue their false advertising.
Now that Texas and other states have “bounty laws” that allow private citizens to earn themselves a handsome “bounty” of at least $10,000 by suing anyone who helps a person get an abortion, Colorado passed the Safe Access to Protected Health Care bill last year. This law protects medical providers and others in Colorado from being sued or criminally prosecuted if they help people from other states access abortion or gender-affirming care in our state. Will voted against these protections for Coloradans.
Let’s not be fooled into thinking it doesn’t matter how far right our commissioners are because they supposedly only deal with local issues. These days, local politicians across the country are taking actions that erode reproductive freedoms, freedom of information, the separation of church and state, and the integrity of our elections.
Who would have thought in recent county commissioner elections we needed to ask the candidates their position on American Library Association policies? Had we asked, some candidates probably would have refused to answer, stating, “That’s outside our role as commissioners.” And yet, here we are now with the commissioners taking over the process of selecting library trustees in an effort to influence library policies.
We should care where our local elected officials stand on important issues like reproductive freedom–and we should be concerned if they refuse to tell us.
Debbie Bruell of Carbondale chairs the Garfield County Democrats and is a past member of the Roaring Fork Schools Board of Education.
