Pueblo City Council resumes fight against abortion

Pueblo City Councilwoman Regina Maestri is considering introducing an anti-abortion ordinance. Again.

“We have a ballot bill on the state ballot,” Maestri said during Monday's work session. “It will solidify abortion laws. It will expand abortion laws. … Two years ago, I introduced an ordinance that advocated closing the clinic that was going to open here. That ordinance was brought to me by our current president. [Mark] Aliff, to whom the Pueblo community members brought it. He was not active on the council at the time, he brought it to me and asked me to move it forward.”

In November 2022, Maestri attempted to make Pueblo a “sanctuary city for the unborn” with an ordinance that invoked the Comstock Act, an anti-vice law from 1873 that prohibited the sending and receiving of obscene messages. The ordinance was an attempt to sabotage the CARE [Clinics for Abortion and Reproductive Excellence] clinic in Pueblo. That legal strategy was spearheaded by Mark Lee Dickson, the director of Right to Life of East Texas and founder of the Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn Initiative. Dickson, who describes himself as a “36-year-old virgin,” boasted of his success in convincing communities like Hobbs, New Mexico, to restrict abortion access. The effort in Pueblo was led by Forging Pueblo, a group whose mission statement is similar to that of the Seven Mountain Dominionists and whose board members include Tamra Axworthy, the executive director of Pueblo's A Caring Pregnancy Center, a crisis center for anti-abortion activists, and Rep. Stephanie Luck (R-Penrose).

In July, the Pueblo City Council voted 5-1 to spend $1,500 of public funds on a fundraiser for Axworthy's pregnancy center. The City Council will hear more about Maestri's ordinance during the Sept. 23 work session, and any vote on the ordinance would have to take place during a regular meeting.

Aliff, who served on the Pueblo City Council from 2018 to 2022, was up for re-election in 2023. In 2019, Aliff appeared in a promotional video for Forging Pueblo. “Christians need to get involved and be organized in all areas of our culture, including government,” he said in the three-minute video. “We read in Scripture how God has placed powerful men and women in this capacity.”

Then-City Council President Heather Graham, who now serves as Pueblo's mayor, sharply criticized the 2022 ordinance, which was defeated by a vote of 4 to 3. “Some people in our city government don't care about the citizens they are supposed to represent,” she said at the time.

“There are so many people who would be impacted by this ordinance, but certain elected officials just don't care who they run over if it serves their interests,” Graham said. “We stood up here as the Pueblo City Council. Our job is to keep the community safe with police and fire, and to provide financial justice to the citizens of Pueblo. A quick overview of our goals: Modernize city facilities and infrastructure, including the police and courthouses. Improve the condition and quality of streets and parks. Build new buildings and upgrade our fire stations. Create an atmosphere where citizens are proud of Pueblo, our city. Celebrate our cultural diversity. Ensure the City Council projects a positive image as a leader. Keep citizens well informed of city issues, policies and programs. Build strong partnerships with our community and our other governments. Improve working relationships with the county and school district. Identify common goals and directions for the Greater Pueblo community. Better utilize civic and business organizations and better understand the relationship between the City of Pueblo and the Town of Pueblo. Our job is not to regulate abortion supplies because that is all this ordinance is intended to do. The clinic is open and I am sure it will remain open even if this ordinance passes. This is not going to eliminate a clinic. Do we really want to require the U.S. Postal Service to open packages to our clinic or hospitals in Pueblo to make sure none of the supplies are inside? That is not our job.”

The CARE clinic in Pueblo is currently open and operating.

Democrats Sarah Martinez and Dennis Flores spoke against Maestri's reinstatement of the ordinance. “Absolutely not,” Martinez said. “I oppose it wholeheartedly. The fact that we're even discussing this is beyond frustrating to me. Why this is even considered a city issue – I think that's a complete waste of our time and city resources. Why the City Council would even allow this to be an issue again is beyond me.”

Flores noted that regulating abortion is outside the City Council's purview. “We're constantly entering border areas where we have no say,” he said. “This is something the state of Colorado is going to do. They're going to codify it. We have no power here on the City Council to circumvent anything they do. Can we talk about it? Yes, this is the United States. We can talk about any issue, but we have so many important things that we should be doing. In this particular case, it is legal in the state of Colorado to have an abortion. It is legal for this clinic to be in business.”

Pueblo Pro-Choice, a pro-abortion activist group, is urging residents to attend a work session at 5 p.m. on Sept. 23 at Pueblo City Hall.