COLORADO — Although the US Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade with a ruling on a new abortion law in Mississippi, Colorado put protections in this year for someone's right to an abortion. However, people seeking services could see a longer waitlist to get access.
With the Friday, June 24 decision by the high court, states can now make their own laws regarding abortions. Thirteen states have so-called trigger laws, which ban abortions following the overturning of Roe. Lawmakers in those states made the changes as the justices began to consider the Mississippi case.
Those states include many near Colorado's borders, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, and Texas.
Colorado's Reproductive Health Equity Act, says that state and local public entities are prohibited from interfering with a person’s right to continue a pregnancy, give birth, or have an abortion. It also calls people’s access to contraception a “fundamental right.”
Sponsors said they would prepare a statewide constitutional amendment ballot measure for 2024 to enshrine reproductive rights in the state constitution.
RELATED: Colorado leaders, organizations react to SCOTUS overturning Roe v. Wade
Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountain saw an influx of people coming to them from out of state when Texas passed a restrictive law, banning abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy.
"When a person does not want to. be pregnant for whatever reason, when that just becomes a devastating aspect in their life, they will go through whatever means they can to be able to seek abortion care," says Adrienne Mansanares, CEO of PPRM.
Mansanares expects the same thing to happen as Roe V Wade is overturned, because states will once again hold the power to determine their own restrictions when it comes to abortion.
"For women who have the financial means, I think we're going to see those patients able to get the care. Instead black, indigenous, patients of color, low-income people, people living in rural areas who may not be able to access the resources... are again... condemned into poverty," says Mansanares.
However Focus on the Family, a faith-based organization in Colorado Springs believes in having more restrictive laws when it comes to abortion.
"Our prayer is that when it goes back to the states, the states will follow... what Texas has done, Oklahoma, the abortion bans... We really feel like that is a way for us to continue to protect women, protect children," says Robyn Chambers with Focus on the Family.
The Supreme Court draft opinion leaked in May had many across the country wondering how they were leaked in the first place. An investigation into the leak has been launched by the United States Department of Justice, but Josh Dunn, a UCCS Political Science Professor, believes the security breach will have lasting impacts in the halls of the Supreme Court.
"It does appear that the most likely source of a leak would be a clerk... So it's going to take a while I think for the court to rebuild trust among its own members."
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