Colorado Governor Signs Abortion and Gender-Affirming Care Protection Bills
Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed three bills on Friday, April 14 that further protect the rights to abortion and gender-affirming care services in the state. Neighboring conservative states have created harsh restrictions on such procedures and access to the so-called abortion pill is up in the air.
Gov. Polis’s signature for these bills happened about a year after he signed a bill to protect the right to abortion into Colorado law, a couple months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
At the same time, conservative neighboring states such as Oklahoma and Wyoming have passed strict abortion bans, while in Utah, Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill earlier this year banning hormone treatment and surgical procedures for minors seeking gender-affirming care.
Bill SB23-188 that Polis signed allows Colorado to be a safe haven for people coming from other states with harsh restrictive laws who are seeking abortion access and gender-affirming treatment and care. The new law prohibits Colorado courts or judicial officers from issuing subpoenas in connection with another state that involves a person who receives or “performs, assists, or aids” an abortion or gender-affirming treatment in Colorado, both of which are legally protected in the state.
Similarly, New Mexico’s Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has also signed legislation in March that prohibits local municipalities or other public entities from interfering with a person’s ability to access reproductive or gender-affirming health care services in New Mexico.
Gov. Polis shared in a statement that “He’s proud to sign these pro-freedom laws to further uphold Colorado’s value of protecting access to reproductive health care. [Here] in Colorado, we value individual freedoms and we stand up to protect them.”
The second bill Polis signed into law, SB23-189, directs large employers to “provide coverage for the total cost of abortion care without policy deductibles, copayments, or coinsurance.”
The third law, SB23-190, makes it a “deceptive trade practice” for any entity to advertise that it “provides abortions, emergency contraceptives, or referrals for abortions or emergency contraceptives” when it does not, according to a bill summary. A health care provider will also be subject to disciplinary measures if it “provides, prescribes, administers, or attempts medication abortion reversal” in violation of any related rules by state authorities.
As Polis signed the bills into law Friday, the fate of access to the abortion drug mifepristone continued to debated after a US district judge in Texas said last week that he would suspend the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion pill. US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Friday extended a hold in an effort to give justices more time to consider the issue. The case centers on the scope of the FDA’s authority to regulate the drug that is used in the majority of abortions today in states that still allow the procedure.
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