Colorado protects abortion rights but reproductive health care still faces threat from Trump, SCOTUS

Abortion rights advocates at the Colorado Capitol in Denver.

Colorado voters approved Amendment 79, which creates a right to abortion and repeals an existing provision that prohibits public funds for abortion in the Colorado Constitution, with 61.46% of the vote. Amendment 79 will know allow public employees and low-income patients to access abortion care through state-provided health insurance plans and Medicaid.

“Our community’s lives depend on reproductive justice,” said Dusti Gurule, President and CEO of COLOR Action Fund in a news release. ”Voters made this clear by enshrining the fundamental right to abortion in our state constitution. Together with our incredible partners, including Voces Unidas Action Fund, we successfully collaborated to empower our communities, provide critical information, and ensure every voice was heard. By voting YES on Amendment 79, we’ve secured the right for all Coloradans to make our own decisions about our bodies and futures without government interference.”

Colorado is one of seven states that approved pro-abortion ballot measures this year, joining Montana, Nevada, Arizona, Missouri, Maryland and New York in protecting access to abortion. Abortion actually outperformed Vice President Kamala Harris in all the states where it was on the ballot, but it was not enough to help the candidate secure an electoral victory.

During a media briefing Wednesday, Gurule said such results aren’t unheard of. “If you look at previous elections, in 2020, when we defeated [an anti-abortion] ballot measure here in Colorado — handily defeated — more people voted ‘no’ than they voted for some of our top Senate races,” she said. “So the connection to the issue and the elected person or candidate, for us, I think it makes sense, but we’re not quite there with community and we’re still trying to figure out what that means. How do we continue to work with community to connect those dots? A lot of that takes 365 days a year of working with community and making those connections and canvasing and having conversations. You know, I’m a little flabbergasted myself with the national results from last night’s [Tuesday, Nov. 5] election.”

Despite Colorado’s success in protecting abortion access legislatively and through a constitutional movement, advocates warn there are still threats to reproductive healthcare from the federal level. 

“I know a lot of folks are talking about the presidency, but the Senate is actually particularly important in this moment,” said Nourbese Flint, president of abortion advocacy group All* Above All Action Fund. “Whether or not the Republican Party can get enough Senate seats where they can push through their secretaries, their court appointees is, crucial to abortion access. There is some hesitation and some worry about what the Department of Justice can or cannot do. There’s Comstock. We do know that where we had two Supreme Court cases that were not wrapped up, but really kicked down the road that could be coming back. Although there are states that have done tremendous jobs and it’s incredibly important, unfortunately, we are in a position where even if your state had passed great legislation, that actual tangible access, like tangible access to medication abortion, might be harder. The tangible access to getting into that state might be harder. The Project 2025 — they openly mused about a national abortion ban. We’ve got to believe them when they tell us.”

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the plaintiffs in the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine vs FDA suit lacked standing to challenge the FDA’s approval of medication abortion drug mifepristone, but that does not preclude future challenges from different plaintiffs.

The Comstock Act is an 1873 anti-vice law banning the mailing and receiving of obscene matter. Anti-abortion activists, most notably East Texas Right to Life’s Mark Lee Dickson, have invoked the Comstock Act in efforts to ban abortion at the municipal level. Last month, Pueblo City Councilor Regina Maestri unsuccessfully re-introduced an anti-abortion ordinance invoking the Comstock Act.

“We know women are dying because of Trump’s abortion bans amid a crisis that he orchestrated,” said Flint. “Threats to abortion care, especially medication abortion, IVF, birth control, miscarriage and emergency abortion care, and more, remain and could be in our future. [Vice President-elect] J.D. Vance and their zealots will continue to police our lives, bodies, and communities, all while pushing us towards a dangerous, deadly future that threatens our, our health, our safety, economic security, and democracy.”

Editor’s note: This story first appeared on the Colorado Times Recorder website.