History
Early history
Colorado became a territory in 1861, [10] and its General Laws included a ban on abortion: [11]
"[E]very person who shall administer substance or liquid, or who shall use or cause to be used any instrument, of whatsoever kind, with the intention to procure the miscarriage of any woman then being with child, and shall thereof be duly convicted, shall be imprisoned for a term not exceeding three years, and fined in a sum not exceeding one thousand dollars; and if any woman, by reason of such treatment, shall die, the person or persons administering, or causing to be administered, such poison, substance or liquid, or using or causing to be used, any instrument, as aforesaid, shall be deemed guilty of manslaughter, and if convicted, be punished accordingly."
The first documented time "abortion" was mentioned in Colorado newspapers was in the Rocky Mountain News on September 30, 1867. Back then, midwives used herbs to try to end pregnancies, but this could be very dangerous. The first documented arrest for abortion is J. H. Murphy in Denver in 1868, and Dr. Mary Solander from Boulder was the first person sentenced to prison for abortion in 1873. [12]
Legislative history
In 1891, Colorado adopted Senate Bill 310, which further criminalized procuring an abortion. [13] In the early 1900s, newspapers reported more cases of doctors being charged. [12] In 1909, osteopaths were prohibited from performing abortions. [13]
In 1929, the Colorado Assembly tried to make it legal for doctors to talk to married couples about birth control. But this law was killed in the Colorado Senate after heated debate. The proposed law was a partial repeal of the 1873 Comstock Act that made it illegal to distribute birth control materials. [12]
In 1962, the American Law Institute published their model penal code, as it applied to abortions, with three circumstances where they believed a physician could justifiably perform an abortion: "If ... there is substantial risk that the continuance of the pregnancy would gravely impair the physical or mental health of the mother, or that the child would be born with grave physical or mental defect, or that the pregnancy resulted from rape, incest, or other felonious intercourse." In 1967, Colorado became the first state to apply this into law, [14] followed by Arkansas, California, Georgia, Maryland, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Oregon. [15] Specifically, the new law permitted an abortion in cases of rape, incest, fetal abnormality, and to protect the life of the mother. [16] [17] However, it was only up to 16 weeks of pregnancy and required the husband's permission and approval from three doctors. [18] [13] Over 33 months, 1,500 Colorado women obtained legal abortions, while around 20,000 sought illegal abortions because of the costs and red tape. [18]
In 1969, lawmakers failed to pass a bill that would have removed liability for a doctor or hospital refusing to perform an abortion. [13]
In 1978, Colorado set up Medicaid funding to help poor women get abortions. [14] In 1979, a bill to ban public funding of abortions failed. In 1984, voters approved a similar constitutional amendment. [13]
In 1993, Colorado enacted speech restrictions within 100 feet of abortion clinics, a policy the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in Hill v. Colorado in 2000. [13]
In 1998, Becky Bell's parents worked against proposed parental notification laws in Colorado. [19]
In 2006, pharmacists in Colorado were allowed to provide emergency contraception. [13] In 2019, women in Colorado were eligible for temporary disability as a result of abortion or miscarriage. [20] [21]
Colorado Republicans introduced numerous bills to ban or restrict abortion in almost all cases, beginning in 1997 and continuing through 2022. These bills did not pass. [13] [22] [6]
On April 4, 2022, Governor Jared Polis signed the Reproductive Health Equity Act, which guarantees access to reproductive care and affirms the rights of pregnant women to continue or terminate a pregnancy. The act prohibits public entities from restricting or denying those rights. [23] [24]
Judicial history
The US Supreme Court's decision in 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling meant the state could no longer regulate abortion in the first trimester. [15] However, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization , No. 19-1392 , 597 U.S. ___(2022) later in 2022. [25] [26]
Ballot box history
In 2008, Kristine Burton and Michael Burton of Colorado for Equal Rights jointly proposed the Colorado Amendment 48 initiative. [27] [28] Colorado Right to Life supported the amendment. [29] There was bipartisan opposition. [30] The text would have amended the definition of a person to "any human being from the moment of fertilization". [31] This definition would have applied to all sections of Colorado law, thus giving a fetus the equal rights of life, liberty, and property as a fully developed, born person would. [32] On November 4, 2008, the initiative was turned down by 73.2 percent of the voters. [33]
| Choice | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|
 No | 1,691,165 | 73.21 |
| Yes | 618,761 | 26.79 |
| Total votes | 2,309,926 | 100.00 |
Colorado Proposition 115 was a 2020 ballot initiative preventing abortion after 22 weeks unless the pregnancy endangered the mother's life. Performing an abortion after 22 weeks would have become a Class 1 misdemeanor. On November 3, 2020, Colorado voters rejected Proposition 115, with 59% of voters opposed to the initiative. [35]
| Choice | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|
| No | 1,859,479 | 58.99 |
| Yes | 1,292,787 | 41.01 |
| Total votes | 3,152,266 | 100.00 |
On April 18, 2024, Coloradans For Protecting Reproductive Freedom submitted nearly double the signatures required to put abortion rights on the ballot in Colorado in the November 2024 elections. 2024 Colorado Amendment 79 would enshrine the right to abortion in the Colorado state constitution. [37]
Clinic history
Between 1982 and 1992, the number of abortion clinics in the state decreased by fourteen, going from 73 in 1982 to 59 in 1992. [38] In 2014, there were 21 abortion clinics in the state. [39] In 2014, 78% of the counties in the state did not have an abortion clinic. That year, 27% of women in the state aged 15 – 44 lived in a county without an abortion clinic. [40]
In March 2016, there were 21 Planned Parenthood clinics in the state. [41] After Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains switched from directly billing women to directly billing Medicaid in 2016, they ran into funding bills as Medicaid has low reimbursement rates. Consequently, they were forced to close two clinics in Colorado and one in Wyoming in July 2017. [42] In 2017, there were nineteen Planned Parenthood clinics, of which eleven offered abortion services, in a state with a population of 1,278,937 women aged 15–49. [42]
