Colorado state representative and Republican congressional candidate Richard Holtorf was asked to answer for his apparent abortion hypocrisy during a televised interview, including why he paid for his girlfriend’s procedure.
Colorado local station 9News anchor Kyle Clark dug into Holtorf’s anti-choice position, asking why, if he thought women shouldn’t have a right to the procedure, he encouraged his partner to go through with one.
“If abortion was the best choice for your girlfriend, why try to deny that choice to other women?” Clark asked on his “Next with Kyle Clark” segment.
“Let me give you some context about that situation because I’m a pro-life Catholic and I believe everyone should choose life,” Holtorf said.
Clark didn’t allow Holtorf to dance around the question, clarifying, “What I’m asking you about is the fact that you said that you respected your girlfriend’s right to an abortion, and then gave her money to help her through an important time ‘to live her best life.’”
“She had an abortion. Was that her choice? Yes. Did she have that right? Yes. Was it my choice, Kyle? No,” Holtorf answered.
Holtorf then rejected claims that he sought to deny a right to abortion to other women, before Clark corrected the record, citing his vote to restrict access to abortion.
“Is one of the exceptions when Richard Holtorf is the father?” Clark quipped as Holtorf scrambled to reconcile his pro-life identity with his belief that there should be “exceptions.”
Clark garnered attention earlier this month for his grilling of Holtorf and the other CO-4 Republican candidates in a debate, including Rep. Lauren Boebert over the lewd acts she committed inside a public theater during a performance of “Beetlejuice,” and her subsequent beratement of service workers.
The seat, which Rep. Ken Buck previously held until his partial-term retirement in March, went to the GOP candidate by over 20 points in 2022. Boebert holds a substantial lead in the Republican primary, scheduled for June 25, while Holtorf polled at just 4%, per a June Kaplan poll. Boebert opted to run in the seat rather than her current CO-3 after she nearly lost the slightly bluer seat in 2022.
