This week, Colorado citizens showed up to testify for and against two new pro-life bills in the state. One would protect babies born alive after botched abortions, and the other would ban abortion after the 22nd week of pregnancy, except in some limited circumstances. While the efforts failed because Colorado’s legislature and Governor’s office are controlled by the Democrat party, it was a strong showing and bipartisan effort that demonstrated the growing support for pro-life efforts in the state.

The effort to introduce a 22-week abortion ban, which is similar to a statewide ballot initiative currently gathering petition signatures, was led by State Representative Dave Williams (R-16), who hoped that this reasonable abortion restriction would move some legislators to act.

“The proponents of the initiative contacted me and asked if I would be willing to carry the legislation, and with no hesitation I said absolutely,” State Representative Williams said in an interview with The Daily Citizen. “This is something that I support. I believe we should be making every attempt that we can to save as many children as we can. I’m an all the above approach. If we’re trying to do legislation that outright stops abortion at the moment of conception, I’ll be for that. If there are approaches that could be taken incrementally to save some lives, I’ll support that too.”

For Representative Williams, this comes from a personal place. He spent some of his childhood outside abortion clinics while his mother would try to talk women out of getting an abortion. She wanted to minister to these mothers and prevent them from making the same mistake that she made.

But at this point, the Democrat-controlled House and Senate have demonstrated that life is not a priority.

“It’s no surprise that the current Democrat majority in the House, Senate and the Governor’s office are completely sold out to Planned Parenthood and their abortion mills,” State Representative Williams said. “The whole point of doing this is to raise awareness of the fact that we’re not going to get a fair shake in the legislature as it is currently constituted. It’s going to take good people, Christians, believers, and people that are pro-life, to put in a new majority of pro-life legislators, preferably Republican, but more importantly pro-life legislators from either party. Voters need to speak up and rise up. Churches need to speak up and rise up and affirm life. Not only with their personal life and views, but also at the ballot box. Because every life is precious and if we can save some lives then that is a worthy cause.”

Although a recent Democrat presidential candidate said that there should be no pro-life supporters in the Democrat party, don’t tell Tom Pirelle. The president of Democrats for Life in Colorado is passionate about life and fully supports both bills.

“I’ve been pro-life for ages,” Pirelle said in an interview with The Daily Citizen. A retired internal medicine doctor, his pro-life beliefs were cemented after two experiences he had while training to become a doctor.

“In medical school there were a couple of things that struck me. I still remember the experiences vividly, so it obviously had an impact on my psyche,” he said. “One was during a discussion on abortion at Northwestern Medical School where an abortionist was one of the speakers. He literally came from a completing an abortion with a bucket and inside the bucket was the remains of a late trimester baby that he passed around for all of us to look at. He told us that we need to deal with the reality of it. To me, the reality was that you’ve killed a baby but that’s not the point he was trying to make. It was very disturbing on multiple levels.”

“The other thing that struck me was during my OB/GYN rotation at a Catholic hospital where they didn’t do abortions, but they had a woman on staff who did perform abortions at a separate abortion clinic. I remember the residents talking about the fact that she drove a Rolls Royce. And that forever made the connection for me that this is a business that is quite lucrative for people. I thought about the humanity of the fetus in the bucket and the fact that, for practitioners, this is about money and greed. Some people have altruistic motives, but for a large percentage of people, they do this because it is cash money, it makes them rich and they can’t do anything else in medicine.”

Despite powerful testimony from pro-life community members, experts and physicians, the measure did not pass, which is unfortunate. It truly is a commonsense piece of legislation that would not only protect preborn life but impose reasonable restrictions on a state that houses one of the country’s most infamous late-term abortionists. But pro-life legislators and community members will not stop fighting for life, no matter how long it will take.