GOP Senate nominee in Colorado says he will stand by pro-choice position in first five months

Colorado Republican Senate nominee Joe O’Dea said on Sunday he won’t back down from his belief that abortions should be legal during the first five months of pregnancy.

“I’m not going to change,” O’Dea said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“I’m an independent thinker. I am who I am, and you get what you get, and that’s how I’ll vote,” he told moderator Chuck Todd.

O’Dea is challenging incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) in what is expected to be a close race. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the race as “lean Democrat.”

The Colorado Republican is portraying himself as a moderate to voters, bucking his party by supporting legal abortion and believing President Biden won the 2020 election fairly.

O’Dea told Todd he believes abortion should be legal for the first five months of pregnancy, with further exceptions for cases of rape, incest or medical necessity. 

“And that decision should also be a woman’s decision with her doctor,” O’Dea said. “But I don’t believe in late-term abortion on demand.”

O’Dea said a bipartisan bill introduced by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) that aims to codify abortion protections is “on the right track.” 

The bill, with prevents states from enacting laws that impose an “undue burden” on access to pre-viability abortions while also allowing some “reasonable” limits on those performed post-viability, is an attempt to find middle ground on abortion rights after separate legislation failed twice on the Senate floor.

But the bill has been met with criticism from some progressives, who believe the bill does not go far enough.

“She’s got some traction,” O’Dea said of the bill on NBC. “I think that bill could pass. There’s a couple things I’d like to see in it. Parental notification is something that we have in Colorado. I think that would be [a] good add to that bill.”

Those attempts come as most Republicans look to restrict legal abortion after the Supreme Court in June struck down the landmark Roe v. Wade case that enshrined the constitutional right to abortion in 1973.

Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country have passed bills banning abortion, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) last week introduced a bill banning abortion nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy but it’s unlikely to have the votes to pass.