What Bluebook Isn't Telling Us about 79

Infants are dismembered, poisoned, stabbed, or starved with the intent to cause their deaths through elective abortions. This torture is legal at any time during the full nine months of a child’s life prior to birth in Colorado. If the infant survives the abuse to be born alive, we have no laws to protect them, and newborns are left on cold metal trays without a blanket and without comfort to die of thirst, hunger, cold, asphyxiation, and the wounds inflicted upon them. The goal of an elective abortion is to kill the child before they are born so their cry cannot be heard. The mother is put into preterm labor or her cervix unnaturally stretched to take her child (or children) from her.

These tiny infants with arms and legs and heartbeats, his or her own blood type and fingerprints, faces and personalities, will move away from touch to their face by seven weeks in the womb. These infants can feel what is happening to them. Newborn infants are the same individuals they were prior to birth with the same brain and heart they will have throughout life. The child is just in their mother’s womb instead of her arms. The bodies of mothers are violated to intentionally take the lives of these children from them. These mothers who are in crisis can be helped through their crisis without ripping their children from them.

This amendment can prevent mothers from getting the helps that they need to continue a pregnancy and give birth to their children if it is considered to “impede” a woman getting an abortion. This amendment puts child sacrifice above the needs of women, the love of family, and the care of infants and children.

Amendment 79 puts killing innocent humans into the state Constitution. While Americans have typically protected human life around the world, this amendment targets our next generation of Americans. 79 promotes and perpetuates a holocaust or genocide against Americans.  

In 1984, Colorado voters amended the Colorado Constitution to prohibit the use of state and local government funds to pay for “any induced abortion, PROVIDED HOWEVER, that the General Assembly, by specific bill, may authorize and appropriate funds to be used for those medical services necessary to prevent the death of either a pregnant woman or her unborn child under circumstances where every reasonable effort is made to preserve the life of each.”

These are the words #79 would remove from our Constitution, removing any mention of the child or trying to save both mother and child, and any protections from taxpayers who don't want to participate in paying for murdering children.

Instead of protecting innocent humans, the amendment “protects” abortionists who exploit women to kill children for profit, feeding sex traffickers, rapists, and incest perpetrators. Amendment 79 is not about healthcare and not about reproductive rights, as it claims. Contrary to the arguments of abortionists trying to push an agenda on Colorado, #79 is only about abortion.  

This amendment is not isolated to Colorado, either, as it is being pushed under many numbers and names on ten state ballots using out-of-state funds. In Colorado, abortionists paid out-of-state circulators to get enough alleged signatures to get #79 onto the ballot: this amendment is not organic to Colorado.

Abortion in Amendment 79 includes all elective abortions all nine months of pregnancy with no protections at birth. We are not talking about miscarriage where the baby has already died. Elective abortion is the intentional and unnecessary taking of an infant’s life.

The amendment and candidates who promote the deaths of children and harm to women by calling it “healthcare” or “rights” or “freedom” tug at our American ideals of freedom, rights, and being healthy while promoting exactly the opposite. While healthcare is intended to protect lives, abortion intentionally kills one patient (the child) and causes unnecessary pain and suffering for the other patient (the mother). Women are manipulated to participate in ending the lives of their children rather than allowing children to continue living a natural life, however long that will be.

Most abortions (98%) kill perfectly healthy children and harm the reproductive health of otherwise healthy mothers. Violating the promise to do no harm, medical personnel who are forced to participate in abortions during medical school have learned to dehumanize the child and even pressure mothers to abort, some creating crises through initial prenatal screenings of the child’s health which have been found to be wrong most of the time. [1] More than half of mothers participating in abortion say that they felt coerced to do so. This is particularly disturbing given the fact that those for death don't even use the word "choice" anymore, rather "necessary healthcare" that can be inflicted upon women.

While risks to children from abortion is intended death, risks to mothers from abortion (both chemical and surgical) include hemorrhage, infection, infertility, and death. 81% of women experience psychological issues following an abortion including suicidal tendencies, depression, anxiety, rage, and chemical dependence. [2]

An Independent study has shown that 1 in 7 women visit an emergency room following an abortion. [3] Abortionists report that 1 in 25 women need emergency medical services following an abortion which is still incredibly high for something promoted as healthy or good for women. [4] Despite what abortionists say, natural childbirth and c-section are safer for mothers than abortion. [5] The mental health of underage girls and women, and the physical well-being of mothers, are harmed by abortion.

True “reproductive freedom” means we can choose where, when, and with whom we will engage in activities that could produce a child. Changes in law through the amendment and anti-life politicians would force taxpayers, doctors, communities, and mothers to participate in killing the next generation of Americans.

Infants and mothers need our protection in law, not the “right” to kill and exploit them. It is the job of government and our elected officials to protect innocent human lives. Amendment 79 is not about healthcare or reproductive freedom; it is only about killing children. It is estimated to cost Colorado taxpayers in the millions of dollars. It is not fair to kill one innocent child. And it is not fair to force even one taxpayer, community, or doctor to participate in the death of a child against our moral conscience.

Any law allowing even one child to be intentionally killed is too extreme. Elective abortion is not healthcare, not necessary, has as its sole purpose to kill children, and causes unnecessary pain and suffering and harm to women. Elective abortion is always extreme and always wrong.

Writers of the Bluebook ignored multiple requests that they be honest with voters about reasons voters may want to oppose 79. The constitutional amendment would result in deaths to children. Most of us want to protect children and don’t believe anyone has the right to kill or abuse another innocent human being. Killing children and exploiting mothers doesn’t create a better future for Colorado. Whether they call abortion “reproductive freedom” or “healthcare”, it is still intentionally killing a child. And I hope the majority of us will oppose that.

Because every child deserves a birthday.

[1] When They Warn of Rare Disorders, These Prenatal Tests Are Usually Wrong, Sarah Kliff & Aatish Bhatia, New York Times, 1 January 2022.

[2] A Longitudinal Cohort Study of Emergency Room Utilization Following Mifepristone Chemical and Surgical Abortions, 1999–2015, National Library of Medicine, 09 November 2021.

[3] Incidence of Emergency Department Visits and Complications After Abortion, citing reported billing to Medicaid of California 2009-2010, ACOG, January 2015.

[4] Abortion and mental health: quantitative synthesis and analysis of research 1995–2009, Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018.

[5] Deaths associated with pregnancy outcome: A record linkage study of low income women, Southern Medical Journal 95(8):834-41, David C Reardon, Philip G Ney, Fritz Scheuren, Jesse Cougle, Priscilla K Coleman, Thomas W Strahan, September 2002.

Faye Barnhart is a life-affirming specialist, women's and children's advocate, and founder of the Colorado Life Initiative Coalition (gotaheart.org). She raised her children as a single parent and is now married with an adopted special needs son and enjoys each of her grandchildren, including a grandbaby who needed life-saving surgery at birth.