There is still a chance that the U.S. Supreme Court won’t overturn decades of constitutional legal precedent guaranteeing that women in this country have the right to make fundamental decisions about their bodies, futures and health without government intervention.
However, in December, the Supreme Court’s oral arguments about a 15-week abortion ban in Mississippi did not inspire confidence in some justices’ dedication to American jurisprudence.
That is why Colorado lawmakers must guarantee abortion access in this state. Supreme Court justices could revoke a fundamental constitutional right, taking rights and freedom back decades in states that refuse to protect women from government overreach, but states and Congress can make such a ruling completely irrelevant.
House Bill 1279 will ensure that every Coloradan has the right to use or refuse contraception and the right to give birth or have an abortion. It does not, as some critics have argued, allow for a baby that has been born to be killed.
Many of the Republicans in the Colorado House spoke for hours to delay House Bill 1279, talking about the moral and ethical problems of ending a pregnancy. Of course, morality drives many of our laws. Still, in this clash between personal bodily autonomy and ethical concerns, Coloradans have repeatedly said that we trust the moral compasses of women and doctors.
Almost 60% of Colorado voters rejected a ballot question in 2020 that would have banned abortions after 22 weeks of gestation (often considered the point of viability outside the womb with intensive medical interventions). It was the fourth time in about a decade that Colorado voters have refused to regulate abortion.
More than a million Coloradans have already voted to support the effect of House Bill 1279. The bill brought forward by Reps. Meg Froelich and Daneya Esgar and Sen. Julie Gonzales will only codify Colorado as a place of reproductive freedom.
We trust women and their doctors to make ethical decisions. We do not trust the U.S. government or the state of Colorado to determine whether a pregnancy must be carried to term, and while the intent of abortion restrictions is not to create reproductive disparities, that is without a question the effect. Women with the financial means to travel to other states or countries to seek reproductive care will do so, and women who are poor or who are too young to escape the shackles of reproductive oppression on their own will be forced to continue their pregnancies.
The Colorado Senate should pass House Bill 1279 and Gov. Jared Polis should sign it into law.
But we cannot stop there. We know that already women from across the nation come to Colorado to receive an abortion because the procedure is outlawed or regulated in their home state. The crisis will only worsen if the Supreme Court does what we fear and more states begin banning abortions and regulating abortions.
It is time for Congress to finally act. If the Supreme Court will no longer protect women from this gross intrusion, then U.S. lawmakers must. U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, co-chair of the Pro-Choice Caucus, pushed the Women’s Health Protection Act through the House in September only for the bill to die in the Senate on March 1.
But bringing the vote to the floor of the Senate and forcing Republicans and one Democrat to vote against it was progress for a legislative body that has for years refused to take up the issue, instead, hiding behind the security of Roe v. Wade.
America must not watch this fundamental right disappear. We can respond to the Supreme Court’s efforts to erode freedoms in this great country.
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