October 30, 2008 08:33 AM UTC

Surprise! Its October!

• 7 Comments
• by: sufimarie

In their most valiant effort for an October surprise, the proponents of Amendment 48 informed their email list that the Alliance Defense Fund attorneys are suing Governor Bill Ritter, Planned Parenthood, Boulder Valley Women’s Health Center (BVWHC) and the Colorado Department of Health and Environment for $18,000,000 of illegal taxpayer funding of abortion.

Yay! Suing hospitals that help poor people so you can try to bolster your epic fail of an amendment! Yay!

They are suing Planned Parenthood and BVWHC because they do cancer screenings for low income people via the Women’s Wellness Program! They claim the screenings are inherently tied to abortion services.  

In their literature passed out at the conference, they declare Governor Bill Ritter gave no-bid government contracts to the health care providers when Colorado law prohibits state money from funding abortion services. The plaintiffs are going for $18,000,000. The Rocky Mountain News is calling the actual total of state funds to be substantially less. According to Planned Parenthood, the real number of state funds going to the cancer screening program is about 3% of that or $610,792.70.

Additionally, from what I could gather, they are making this based on what an ex-Planned Parenthood employee said in 2000 about abortion services and health care services being intrinsically related.

Kristi Burton was present to make sure everyone knew that this suit was about the betrayal Colorado for Equal Rights feels towards Ritter since he slammed their amendment calling it a “legal quagmire.”

Pro-life Catholic Governor Ritter opposes the Amendment not only because of the quagmire, but also because the amendment gives no abortion exceptions to rape or incest.

Mark Hotaling, the Colorado patsy bringing the suit against Governor Ritter admitted that “this has been in the works for weeks.” Since the poll showing their Amendment is doomed was released, they probably decided it was a good idea to do something real quick.

Everything they have done has pissed off their allies. The Catholic Church won’t endorse the Amendment because they think it would just get overturned by the Supreme Court and thereby solidify abortion rights. Now they are suing health care providers for screening low-income middle aged women for cancer? Are they trying to get the voters to coalesce into a force for socialized reproductive health care? That seems to be the effect they are having!

So I say “Go Kristi, Go!” Because in the end: