DENVER – Colorado Senate Republicans on Tuesday killed a teen pregnancy-prevention bill that was sponsored by members of their own party.
The result left Sen. Ellen Roberts of Durango, the bill’s co-sponsor, disappointed with her caucus – of which she serves as president pro tempore.
She co-sponsored the measure with Rep. Don Coram, a Republican from Montrose.
“I know this is a challenging topic for my caucus, and I will continue to be very interested in supporting teen pregnancy and dropout prevention,” Roberts told The Durango Herald following the 3-2 party-line vote in the Senate Finance Committee.
The vote could foreshadow the fate of a separate bill also sponsored by Coram that would extend a program that provides long-acting contraceptives to low-income women, otherwise known as intrauterine devices, or IUDs. The bill is expected to make it through the Democratic-controlled House, but it would face an uphill battle in the Republican-controlled Senate.
The IUD issue is even more controversial, with several Republicans equating the devices to causing an abortion.
The less controversial measure, House Bill 1079, would have secured funding for a statewide teen pregnancy- and dropout-prevention education and counseling program that currently exists in only Mesa, Montrose and Delta counties.
The “Get Real” program has been administered for nearly 20 years by Grand Junction-based Hilltop Community Resources, an organization that works with children and families on various human and health services.
The “Get Real” program focuses on at-risk youth in the Medicaid system. Case managers meet individually with youth and their families to develop strategies to avoid bad decisions, including teen pregnancy.
The program has served about 3,500 youth, with an average of less than 3 percent of teens participating in the program becoming pregnant or fathering a child.
“They’re learning to become a productive member of society versus a teen parent who would then more than likely represent a burden for the state of Colorado,” said Margery Grandbouche, program coordinator at Hilltop Community Resources.
Colorado would have had to spend only $20,092 in the first year of the program because the federal government would have come in with more than $1.1 million.
Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee, however, said they worried about a patchwork of programs governed by individual counties across the state with little oversight.
Joneen Mackenzie, president and founder of the Denver-based Center for Relationship Education, which offers training on family and marriage relationships, said the state should be putting more of a focus on family values.
“This is a duplicative Medicaid feel-good program,” Mackenzie said. “It doesn’t address the core issue of nonmarital childbearing.”
pmarcus@durangoherald.com
