It was a tale of two cities Saturday — or one city with two opposing beliefs.
In the morning, more than a hundred people gathered outside Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountain headquarters in east Denver to call for the government to defund the health care service.
They held signs that read “Planned Parenthood lies to you” and “Stop abortion now.” This was one of about 200 protests scheduled across the country.
Then later in the day, more than a thousand rallied outside Republican Sen. Cory Gardner’s Denver office to support funding Planned Parenthood while holding their own variety of signs, including “Girls just want to have fun-ding” and “Nevertheless, she persisted” while chanting “My body, my choice” and “Not the church, not the state, women will decide their fate.”
Roughly 100 show up outside Planned Parenthood urging the defunding of Planned Parenthood #ProtestPP pic.twitter.com/opjziTbNSA
— Danika Worthington (@Dani_Worth) February 11, 2017
Not a lot of elbow room but there are a lot of signs ¯_(ツ)_/¯ #StandWithPP pic.twitter.com/3mNiS1E9EC
— Danika Worthington (@Dani_Worth) February 11, 2017
Both sides held strong beliefs, feeling that lives were on the line — whether it was the unborn fetus or the mother carrying the baby. And both had a message for Congress: (De)fund Planned Parenthood.
“What makes us all the same as humans?” Students for Life spokeswoman Bethany Janzen asked outside the Planned Parenthood in Stapleton neighborhood. “It’s our humanity. We are all human. We are fighting for those people who have no voice because they’re too little to talk yet.”
Later that day, roughly six miles away at Skyline Park in downtown, 90-year-old Castle Pines resident Mary Butler braved the light rail to attend the rally in support of Planned Parenthood.
“Forty-some years ago, I came out to fight for this,” Butler said. “It seemed like the thing to do then. I shouldn’t have to but it looks like I’m going to have to do it again.”
"I came out 40 some years ago to fight for this…I shouldn't have to but it looks like I'm going to have to do it again." – Mary Butler, 90 pic.twitter.com/3Qwlhqs58Q
— Danika Worthington (@Dani_Worth) February 11, 2017
Pushback against abortion has been escalating since 2010. Between then and 2016, states enacted 338 abortion restrictions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, the nation’s leading abortion-rights research organization.
In Colorado, flames were recently fanned when House Democrats on Thursday rejected three Republican-sponsored bills that would have put added restrictions on abortion. A week before, the Democrat-controlled House passed a resolution reaffirming its support for abortion rights.
Last month, President Donald Trump reinstated the so-called Mexico City Policy, which bans U.S. funding for international groups that perform abortions or provide information about them. The policy, which President Ronald Reagan first instituted, has been repealed and reinstated as Democrats and Republicans flip-flopped in and out of the White House.
Planned Parenthood has two sources of federal funding. The first is through Medicaid reimbursements, where the government pays for medical services after the fact. Medicaid, which provides health coverage for some low-income people, does not cover abortions except in cases of life endangerment, rape or incest. The second source is through Title X funding, which provides grants specifically for family planning but not abortion.
Planned Parenthood reports that only 3 percent of their health services are abortion services. Other services include cervical and breast cancer screening, STI testing and treatment, birth control and Pap tests.
Anti-abortion advocates are pushing Congress to prevent Medicaid funds from being used on any services at Planned Parenthood. Instead, they say the money that would have gone to the health care service should be redirected to Federally Qualified Health Centers that provide a wider range of services — but not abortions.
The anti-abortion activists argued that the procedure kills humans. The abortion-rights advocates countered that abortion helps saves mothers’ lives, noting that women will get abortions regardless, therefore legalization ensures a safe procedure. Additionally, they disagreed about when life begins.
Outside Gardner’s office, people argued that federal funding does not go toward abortion and pointed out that Planned Parenthood provides a host of services — very little of which are abortions. Outside Planned Parenthood, they said the funding was fungible. By providing federal funding for some services, the government was freeing Planned Parenthood to put more resources toward abortions. And to the 3 percent point — they said Planned Parenthood dilutes the numbers by counting separately other services that happen during a visit for an abortion, such as the ultrasound and a prescription for birth control.
Colorado was the first state to legalize abortions in certain circumstances in 1967, six years ahead of the Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision. In the state, abortions are not covered in insurance policies for public employees, a parent of a minor seeking an abortion must be notified and public funding for abortions is only available in cases of life endangerment, rape or incest.
In Colorado, about 13,160 abortions were performed in 2014 while roughly 926,000 abortions were performed in the United States, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Both the state’s and nation’s abortion rates dropped by 14 percent between 2011 and 2014. Colorado had 36 abortion-providing institutes in 2014, which were also down 14 percent since 2011.