One of conservative media's favorite myths in their campaign against reproductive choice -- that certain forms of contraception are equivalent to abortion -- is being parroted by Republicans and anti-abortion groups in Colorado to advocate against extending an expiring state program that provides contraceptive implants to Colorado women at low costs, and has been called “America's most effective anti-teen-pregnancy program.” 

The Colorado Family Planning Initiative, a program that provides long-term contraceptive options for women and teens such as intrauterine devices (IUDs) and hormonal implants at reduced costs may end after the private donation that originally funded it expires June 30, unless a bipartisan Colorado House bill appropriating funding from the state's budget passes in the Republican-controlled Senate.

The Wall Street Journal explained on April 22 that some of Colorado's lawmakers are advocating against “spend[ing] state money to extend the program.”  The Journal pointed to a statement from the anti-abortion group Personhood USA, explaining that the organization “opposed efforts to extend the program because it considered IUDs to be the equivalent of abortion.” In March, NPR wrote that Republican Senator Kevin Lundberg, chairman of the Senate Health Committee in Colorado, claimed that the program "'crosses a line'" because “in Lundberg's view, an IUD can count as an abortion, and this makes it impossible for a program that funds IUDs to receive state funding.”

The claim that IUDs and other forms of contraception cause abortion mimics a long championed conservative media myth. Despite the fact that experts like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have repeatedly explained that IUDs and emergency contraception “do not cause abortions,” right-wing media baselessly claimed that the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) contraception mandate - which includes coverage of IUDS -- covered abortifacients.

Now the conservative media myth has found its way into arguments against Colorado's Family Planning Initiative, which has been called one of “America's most effective anti-teen-pregnancy” programs. The program has provided IUDs and contraceptive implants to “more than 30,000 Colorado women, most of them low income,” and is credited with reducing the state's teen pregnancy rate “faster than the nationwide average, allowing it to leapfrog 11 spots in the national rankings.” The program has also significantly lowered Colorado's abortion rate and saved the state millions of dollars, according to Mother Jones:

Between 2010 and 2012, the state estimates, 4,300 to 9,700 births to women on the state's Medicaid program that would have otherwise occurred did not--saving Medicaid between $49 million and $111 million. The state's abortion rate has also cratered, falling 42 percent among women ages 15 to 19 and 18 percent among women ages 20 to 24 between 2009 and 2012.