Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed a set of healthcare laws on Friday, April 14, that provides access to abortion and gender-affirming medical treatments.
The Bills
The first law protects individuals from prosecution or legal action in other jurisdictions when they participate in or get legal abortions or gender-transition surgery in Colorado. In Colorado, gender change surgery is permitted.
The second law mandates that major employer plans cover the cost of abortions beginning on January 1, 2025, free of any policy deductibles, copays, or coinsurance. However, because the state is not allowed to utilize taxpayer money for abortions, government employers are free from the new rule.
The final bill ruled that fraudulently claiming to provide emergency contraception or abortion services by a pregnancy clinic would be considered deceptive advertising.
As per the Washington Examiner,the decision was made when numerous conservative states tried to restrict or even outlaw abortion. Abortion in Florida was just made illegal after six weeks when most doctors can detect a baby’s heartbeat.
The Aim
The bills aim to ensure that people from other states and countries can travel to Colorado without fear to get an abortion, start puberty blockers, or undergo gender-affirming surgery. Wyoming and Oklahoma, two bordering states, have banned abortions, while Utah has severely restricted the care that transgender children are entitled to.
Many areas with prohibitions on abortion or transgender healthcare make it unlawful to travel to other states to seek legal medical care.
With the new legislation, Colorado joins Illinois as a progressive peninsula granting reproductive rights to citizens of conservative states on three sides. Abortion clinics in Illinois now serve residents across a 1,800-mile area of 11 Southern states that have mostly outlawed the procedure.
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