Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver is urging Catholics in Colorado to vote against a radically pro-abortion measure that will be on Colorado’s upcoming ballot.

“Colorado already has some of the strongest pro-abortion ‘rights’ in the entire world, and this proposition is even more extreme,” the Archbishop wrote in a letter published in Denver Catholic:

If we do not defeat this, pro-life legislation will be unable to be passed due to the constitutional right to abortion, and countless children known only to God will die in Colorado because of state-subsidized abortion.

To pass, the amendment needs the support of 55% of Coloradans. However, the Archbishop explained, recent surveys indicated that if Coloradans understood the full implications of the amendment, only 47% would vote in favor of it.

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“We have a path to victory,” he wrote.

“Coloradans need to know that Amendment 79 creates a constitutional right to abortion and bans any limits on late abortion,” he continued. “Even restrictions on abortions in the ninth month for healthy mothers and healthy babies would be illegal under 79.” He noted that babies in the ninth month can feel pain and survive outside of the womb.

The Archbishop explained that there are three ways the “Right to Abortion” amendment, or Amendment 79, violates human dignity, the first being that it enshrines a “right” to abortion in the state constitution.

Second, the amendment would ban any requirement for parental consent or notification when a minor undergoes an abortion, Archbishop Aquila explained, adding: “Parents must have the right to know if their adolescent daughter is being pressured into getting an abortion by their boyfriend or someone in authority such as their coach, teacher, school nurse or counselor.”

Finally, the amendment mandates taxpayer funding for abortion, the Archbishop warned: “Should this amendment pass, the Colorado legislature could allocate millions of dollars annually for abortion as soon as 2025, as though it were simply a mundane budgetary procedure.”

The Archbishop ended his letter by encouraging Catholics to consider the consequences of even one abortion. “When I considered the outcome, had my grandmother not been born, my mother and seven of my aunts and uncles would not be here, 25 first cousins wouldn’t be here, 26 second cousins would not be here, and so on down the line,” he concluded:

Or imagine if Martin Luther King, Jr., had been aborted and how the course of history would have changed with no MLK for the Civil Rights Movement? Do we truly understand the gravity of abortion, or do we think life is just a game of chance with no meaning or purpose?

As a community, we must stand together to protect the most vulnerable among us and ensure that our laws reflect respect for life, parental rights and the truth that life is a gift. Every Catholic is called by God to be pro-life. I urge you to consider this amendment’s grave implications and join me in opposing it.

To read more about Colorado’s Amendment 79, click here.

LifeNews Note: Grace Porto writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.