In the fight over abortion, Colorado and Idaho went in opposite directions on Monday.
Colorado’s House of Representatives passed a bill codifying reproductive rights into state law. The legislation – which now heads to the Democratic-controlled Senate, where it is expected to pass – says “every individual has a fundamental right to use or refuse contraception; every pregnant individual has a fundamental right to continue the pregnancy and give birth or to have an abortion; and a fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent or derivative rights under the laws of the state.”
“The bill also prohibits state and local entities from denying, restricting, interfering with or discriminating against a person’s decision to either use contraception, give birth or have an abortion,” reports CNN.
Colorado State Rep. Meg Froelich, who sponsored the legislation, called it a “big win for protecting access to abortion and reproductive health care.” In a statement to CNN, she added:
Across the country, the GOP is introducing and passing extreme laws to criminalize those who seek reproductive health care, and to ban abortion entirely, with no exceptions. We’re here to say, that’s not going to happen in Colorado. We’re standing up to protect access to abortion and I’m thrilled the Reproductive Health Equity Act has passed the House.
Lawmakers in nearby Idaho, on the other hand, passed a restrictive ban on abortion on Monday that mirrors controversial legislation in Texas. Both the Texas and Idaho laws prohibit the procedure after fetal cardiac activity is detected. That usually occurs around the sixth week of pregnancy, before many women know they’re carrying.
The laws also empower ordinary citizens to enforce it, a unique feature that is designed to make legal challenges difficult. In general, abortion activists sue a state or state agency when opposing abortions laws. But the citizen-enforcer provision upends that dynamic.
The New York Times adds:
The [Idaho] bill was the latest display of confidence from anti-abortion activists and lawmakers across the country. Both sides of the abortion debate anticipate that by summer, the Supreme Court could pare back or overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion.
Under Roe, states cannot ban abortion before a fetus is viable outside the womb, which with modern medical technology is about 23 weeks of pregnancy. But the court’s six conservative justices appeared willing to abandon that decision when they heard oral arguments in December about a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks.