Chaput rips Ritter on abortion issue

Jean Torkelson, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 17, 2007 at midnight

Text size

More Local News

Archbishop Charles Chaput has mounted his first public criticism of Gov. Bill Ritter, questioning his "seriously flawed" intention to restore state funding to Planned Parenthood, a leading family planning and abortion provider.

In this week's column in the Denver Catholic Register, Chaput praised Ritter's commitments to health care, education and creating "a better future for our children and our children's children."

However, Chaput added, "It's hard to have a future 'for our children and our children's children' without children, and Planned Parenthood specializes in the business of preventing them."

His remarks suggested that a potential showdown looms between an archbishop known nationally for challenging Catholics to bring their faith into public life, and a new Catholic governor who has stated he wouldn't work to change abortion rights and who favored a referendum to create same-sex unions, both issues contrary to Catholic teaching.

In his State of the State speech last week, Ritter got a standing ovation when he pledged to restore funding for pregnancy prevention and family planning programs, of which Planned Parenthood is the largest provider.

That week, Chaput and Ritter had avoided a near-collision when the Ritters held an inaugural day Mass in Denver for 250 people without informing Chaput ahead of time. In a subsequent uproar on the Internet, bloggers complained that Chaput should forbid Ritter from holding Masses if he wasn't going to strictly follow Catholic doctrine.

While Chaput was caught off- guard by the Mass, he said at the time it would be "imprudent and unjust" to judge legislative plans or a governor's directives, such as the Planned Parenthood issue, before they're in final form.

However, this week, upon reflection, Chaput took the next step.

"As he reflected on what was said during the State of the State address, and also realizing this is something (Ritter) campaigned on, he realized we want the governor to know what our hope is," said spokeswoman Jeanette DeMelo. "I think it was simply an urgent call to 'Reflect on this before you do anything.' "

Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer said the governor agrees that public funding shouldn't go to abortions.

"I think the archbishop and the governor share a desire to find a common ground," Dreyer said. "The governor does believe that it's good public policy to prevent unintended pregnancies before they occur."

The controversy over state funding of Planned Parenthood is rooted in a decision by the Owens administration in 1999 that said continued funding of the organization violated the Colorado Constitution, which bans using tax dollars for abortions. The ruling meant Planned Parenthood would not be eligible to continue receiving $320,000.

Planned Parenthood argued it was using the money for family planning and cancer screening only, and the abortion services were separate. However, a later independent audit determined that state money continued to indirectly subsidize the abortion side of the nonprofit group.

The eligibility issue is likely a moot point for Planned Parenthood because the organization is in the process of determining whether it would have to create a completely independent affiliate organization for abortion services to comply with the state constitution, spokeswoman Kate Horle said Tuesday.

She said it would be too expensive and complex to set up separate staffs and even separate buildings.

"The high cost of that restructuring probably doesn't make it a smart move," Horle said.

DeMelo said there's room for reaching common ground with Ritter, though she declined to say whether a meeting has been discussed or scheduled.

Dreyer said the governor would always be open for a meeting.

"They have a good relationship, and whenever they speak it's always productive," Dreyer said.

Planned Parenthood of the Rockies

Status: Nonprofit

Budget: $16 million

Clients: about 120,000 in 2006

Clients receiving abortion services: 7 percent, or about 8,400

Founded: May 1916, second in the country

Original name: Denver Birth Control League