This week, Democrat Governor Jared Polis signed a new bill into law stating that it is now illegal in the state to “deny, restrict, interfere with or discriminate against an individual’s fundamental right to use or refuse contraception or to continue a pregnancy and give birth or to have an abortion.”
It goes on to add that “a fertilized egg, embryo or fetus does not have independent or derivative rights under the laws of the state.”
The law also stops public entities from restricting abortions on account of the "potential, actual, or perceived impact on the pregnancy, the pregnancy's outcomes, or the pregnant individual's health."
The governor noted that while the law does not actually change the current legal framework, it does maintain the status quo no matter what happens at the federal level in future rulings.
Besides the more obvious concerns about the bill allowing babies to be murdered, its lack of conscience protections is very worrying as it may mean that medical professionals will essentially be forced to carry out or participate in abortions.
The president of the Centennial Institute think tank, Jeff Hunt, wrote on Twitter: “This will go down as one of the worst days in Colorado history. Pro-abortionists at the Colorado capitol sealed the fate of countless lives."
The bill’s signing comes just ahead of a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization. A ruling is expected in June that could reverse Roe v Wade, which legalized abortion throughout the country. The new Colorado law even addresses the upcoming decision, stating: "Access to abortion and reproductive health care is currently under attack across the nation. Impending federal court cases, including Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization,… jeopardize access to legal abortion care for tens of millions of people, particularly those living in most Southern and Midwestern states."
While some states expand abortions, others are limiting them
Republican states such as Florida, Arizona and Wyoming are looking to limit or ban abortions if Roe v Wade is reversed, while Democrats are going on the offensive and trying to expand abortion. In February, a pro-abortion bill was proposed in California that would legalize infanticide for weeks, months or years after a child is born.
In 2019, Andrew Cuomo, who was the governor of New York at the time, signed a law codifying abortion rights and removing protections from unborn infants in the event that Roe v Wade is overturned.
In contrast, Idaho recently signed a six-week abortion ban into law in the first bill of its kind to be signed into law this year modeled after a controversial Texas law. The Idaho law states that abortions cannot be performed once embryonic or fetal cardiac activity has been detected, and it even allows the fetus’s family member to bring legal action against a medical provider who provides an abortion. Exceptions will be made for rape, incest and medical emergencies, however.
AB 2223 states that a “person shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability or penalty, or otherwise deprived of their rights, based on their actions or omissions with respect to their pregnancy or actual, potential, or alleged pregnancy outcome, including miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion, or perinatal death.”
Last year’s Texas Heartbeat Act prohibited abortion once there is a detectable heartbeat, which could be as soon as six weeks into the pregnancy.
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