Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights (COLOR) celebrated its 25th anniversary and the recent passage of the Colorado Democrats’ “Safe Access to Protected Health Care” package of legislation during a Thursday event in Denver’s Santa Fe Art District.
“We are the only organization in our state that continues to be rooted in community,” said Dusti Gurule, COLOR’s president and CEO. “This movement has never been a choice for us, being born into a system that was not created for us and in fact was created to harm us, and still harms this community, makes this work even more important.”
Starting in 1998 as the Colorado Caucus of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (NLIRH), COLOR received a $5,000 grant from NLIRH and developed a Latina-specific definition of “reproductive health and rights” based on the United Nations International Conference on Population Development definition. Since then, COLOR has been involved in a wide variety of political campaigns and initiatives, such as opposition to Amendments 25 and 67 and Proposition 115, organizing events like the Latina/o Advocacy Day, and introducing legislation such as the 2019 CARE Act, the Reproductive Health Equity Act, and the “Safe Access to Protected Health Care” package of legislation.
“For 25 years, COLOR has been trusted in our community as we fought for the freedoms that many of us in this room appreciate,” said U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo (D-CO) in a video message played during the event. “Their mission has been to center the lives and voices of those who are most marginalized and empower them.”
Among the evening’s speakers was Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser. “When we ask, ‘Why are things in Colorado so strong for reproductive freedom?’ it’s because people have shown up and done the work, and that can’t end,” he said. “I know that people here are sick and tired of being sick and tired that we’re fighting this basic battle here. What people need to know is that the work for equality, for justice, and for freedom is the essential work of being a citizen, and COLOR is an extraordinary organization that takes this reproductive justice question seriously, that recognizes how it intersects with other incredible challenges around equity, around making sure that everyone can live their best authentic self. That’s who we are in Colorado. We have to be a beacon, not just to protect access to reproductive health care here, but for other states as well. Because in Idaho right now, doctors are being told they can’t be truthful with their patients about opportunities for legal and safe abortion care in Colorado. We’re fighting for the ability to practice medicine. We’re fighting for the ability for people to have access to reproductive health care. That’s going to take continued political work, legal work, spiritual work, and personal work. And that work is work that all of us do together. You bring us together. This is an extraordinary group and we are honored to work to support you.”
Katherine Riley, COLOR’s policy director, thanked Weiser for his support. “We’re so grateful to the attorney general and everyone being here to support us because we know that mis- and disinformation is a major issue for the Latino community,” she said. “We wanted to make sure that people in our community — asylum seekers, immigrants, rural folks — are gaining access to transparent, accessible and medically sound information.”
Recently passed Senate Bill 190 targets “deceptive trade practices” of anti-abortion centers, particularly their marketing of abortion pill reversal, a practice the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists argues is “not supported by science.”
SB190 has been legally challenged by Catholic health care provider Bella Health and Wellness, who argues that the legislation is a violation of their first amendment rights and religious liberty. The Colorado Sun reported that recent filings in the case show that Weiser’s office is not planning on enforcing the provisions of SB190 until after state medical boards are able to convene for a rulemaking session to determine whether abortion reversal meets the threshold of being a “generally accepted standard of practice.”
“Colorado’s attorney general ran away from this law once he realized the legislature had shot from the hip,” said Rebekah Ricketts, counsel at the Becket Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm representing Bella Health and Wellness, in a news release. “Now that the State has promised under oath to act as if the law does not exist, women in Colorado will not be forced to undergo abortions they seek to reverse.”
