August 14, 2024 03:04 PM UTC

Colorado Abortion Providers Inundated with Out-of-State Travelers

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• by: Colorado Pols

We’ve been discussing in this space what it means when Republican politicians try to couch their positions on abortion rights by saying that such decisions should be left “up to the states.”

For Republicans such as Presidential nominee Donald Trump and Gabe-ish Evans [pictured], a candidate for Congress in CO-08, this is a way of avoiding answering questions about supporting a national abortion ban and dodging the real question: Do you support the right of women to make their own reproductive health care decisions…or not?

Evans likes to say that he “don’t got the right parts” to discuss intricacies of reproductive rights, though as a state representative he hasn’t shied away from casting votes on legislation seeking to restrict abortion rights for women. When Evans says, “leave it to the states,” what’s he’s really saying is, ‘it’s okay to gut abortion rights wherever possible.’ And when that happens, it places a massive burden on states such as Colorado where abortion rights are generally protected.

As Christy Powell explained in the latest episode of “The Get More Smarter Podcast,” one of the results of the “leave it up to the states” policy — which became the norm following the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade — is that it leaves women seeking reproductive care to navigate through a complicated patchwork of different health care and legal regulations. For women in states with staunch anti-choice policies in place (such as Iowa, which recently enacted a 6-week abortion ban), seeking potentially life-saving care requires them to travel out of state. Many of those women end up in Colorado. This graphic from Guttmacher Institute illustrates the states in which women are most likely to originate when coming to Colorado for reproductive health care services:

Colorado has been a safe haven for women seeking reproductive health care for years, but it comes at a significant cost. As Kyle Clark of 9News reports today, that cost has risen exponentially since the overturn of Roe v. Wade:

That’s very troubling news.

If you are inclined to help, you can click on the link to make a donation to Cobalt’s Abortion Access Fund.