Colorado Democrats announce abortion, gender-affirming care protections

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DENVER — As Colorado’s neighboring states pass restrictions on abortion and transgender rights, Democrats on Thursday announced a package of three bills aiming to protect reproductive health and gender-affirming care in the state.

The package of bills is expected to be heard in a Senate committee next Wednesday, March 15. Most notably, one of the bills would mandate that Colorado not recognize criminal prosecutions initiated in other states for people who receive, provide or assist in access to an abortion or gender-affirming care in Colorado. The bill would also prevent state employees from participating in criminal investigations regarding residents from other states coming to Colorado for abortion and gender-affirming care.

“While other states are trying to limit or completely dismantle our rights as trans people, we’re enshrining them as law in our state,” said Rep. Brianna Titone, a Democratic representative from Arvada co-sponsoring the package. “This bill works to prioritize patients and providers and fights back against anti-abortion and anti-trans rhetoric and protects our privacy.”

If passed by both legislative chambers and signed by Gov. Jared Polis, one of the bills would also target anti-abortion pregnancy centers and other entities offering “abortion reversal pills,” which the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says “are not based in science.”

Pregnancy centers often identify themselves as vital resources for pregnant people but work to convince those seeking abortions to either not make that choice or try to reverse it, which abortion activists and providers said is incredibly dangerous.

“Anti-abortion centers present themselves as licensed family planning and/or reproductive healthcare clinics, but these fake clinics use deceptive advertising to draw in vulnerable people seeking care to harass them with biased and inaccurate information about abortions and contraceptives,” said Sen. Janice Marchman, a Loveland Democrat and co-sponsor of the bills. “These centers stop Coloradans from attaining safe reproductive health care.”

Lastly, the third bill aims to address financial barriers to those seeking abortions and gender-affirming care by reducing surprise costs for such care.

Alison Berg is a multimedia journalist at Rocky Mountain PBS. You can reach her at alisonberg@rmpbs.org.