Colorado Senate approves abortion bill without limits, governor expected to sign

Following a 13-hour debate, the Colorado Senate on Wednesday passed an extreme abortion bill that would claim abortion as a fundamental right and deny any rights to preborn human beings.

“This is a dark day for the Colorado Democrat Party and any individual who respects the sanctity of life,” said Colorado GOP Chairwoman Kristi Burton Brown. “If Jared Polis decides to sign this extreme abortion bill, he will put Colorado’s abortion laws on par with China and North Korea. The Democrats have chosen to spend weeks of this session pushing a barbaric abortion bill, instead of fighting for issues that would help Colorado families. Republicans know every child deserves to be protected in love and in law. We will never stop standing up for life.”

HB22-1279, or the Reproductive Health Equity Act, passed the Senate in a 20-15 vote and will now head to the desk of Gov. Jared Polis, who is expected to sign it. It strips every preborn human being at any point in pregnancy of their human rights, stating that a human being within the womb “does not have independent or derivative rights under the laws of the state.”

READ: Colorado lawmakers attempting to codify abortion into state constitution

It goes on to state:

The bill prohibits state and local public entities from: 

• Denying, restricting, interfering with, or discriminating against an individual’s fundamental right to sue or refuse contraception or to continue a pregnancy and give birth or to have an abortion in the regulation or provision of benefits, services, information, or facilities; and

• Depriving through prosecution, punishment, or other means, an individual of the individual’s right to act or refrain from acting during the individual’s own pregnancy based on the potential, actual, or perceived impact on the pregnancy, the pregnancy’s outcomes, or on the pregnant individual’s health.

Based on this, the bill could mean that health care workers will be forced participate in or commit abortions against their will and conscientious objections. It would also mean that women can make choices about abortion based on the “pregnancy’s outcomes” which implies that babies who survive abortion or are born with a previously undiagnosed health condition could be left to die if the mother wishes it.

“Under the rules proposed by this bill, if a child is delivered alive during an abortion the doctors are under no legal compulsion to provide standard medical care as they would in any other circumstance and attempt to preserve the child’s life,” said Live Action’s Director of Government Affairs, Noah Brandt. “Medical providers would listen to the mother’s instructions. which could include not providing life-sustaining medical care to the child, which would lead to the child’s death, which most reasonable people would consider infanticide.”

Colorado does not have any gestational age restrictions on abortion. If enacted, this bill would take that lack of laws a step further and guarantee abortion to anyone for any reason at any point in pregnancy.

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