In their fight against RISE Collective, Boulder’s new clinic offering second- and third-trimester abortions, anti-abortion activists have questioned the regulation and oversight of such facilities in Colorado.
“Abortion facilities performing second- and third-trimester abortions are not licensed, regulated, or inspected by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE), despite the high-risk procedures involved,” reads the website for Boulder Women’s Health, the new group, launched in October, which has organized events opposing RISE.
Earlier this month, Colorado Times Recorder reported on an anti-abortion protest against RISE in Boulder, and noted, “By Colorado law, any abortion must be performed by a licensed medical professional in a licensed facility, except in certain extreme cases.”
Our reporter was echoing the language of Colorado’s Senate Bill 142, “Health Care Access In Cases Of Rape Or Incest.”
On its face, claims that Colorado abortion facilities are not licensed by CDPHE are factually correct. “We regulate the hospitals where abortions sometimes take place, but we don’t regulate abortion clinics or the procedures themselves,” said Alexandrea Kallin, a spokesperson for CDPHE in an email. “Abortion is considered a medical procedure within a doctor’s scope of practice.”
Boulder Women’s Health’s website goes on to claim, “After the first trimester, life-threatening hemorrhage and uterine perforation with injury to surrounding organs occur much more frequently. One of every 10 second-trimester surgical abortions result in complications, with 1.7% life-threatening. This is far higher than procedures done in regulated ambulatory surgical facilities … Second- and third trimester abortions carry exponentially increased risks of maternal morbidity and mortality.”
Anti-abortion activists argue that because of the risk involved, abortion should be regulated by CDPHE, but CDPHE’s regulation of health care facilities is not informed by medical norms or necessity, but by legislation.
“The health facilities we regulate are determined by statute,” said Kallin. “The Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) oversees healthcare provider licenses and ensures providers follow state laws and regulations.”
Earlier this year Rep. Scott Bottoms (R-Colorado Springs), introduced legislation to include abortion facilities under CDPHE’s regulatory authority. Abortion advocates consider such legislation an example of TRAP laws, or “targeted restrictions on abortion providers.” Planned Parenthood notes, “TRAP laws are costly, severe, and medically unnecessary requirements imposed on abortion providers and women’s health centers. Often pushed by anti-abortion politicians under the guise of ‘women’s health,’ the real aim of TRAP laws is to shut down abortion providers and make it more difficult for people to access abortion. Medical experts like the American Medical Association and American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists oppose TRAP laws because they don’t improve safety — just the opposite. TRAP laws hurt people by blocking access to safe medical care. In fact ,TRAP laws have devastated access to safe, legal abortion in Texas and hurt access in other states that have imposed them.”
CDPHE currently regulates a variety of health care facilities, including birth centers, community clinics, mental health facilities, and hospitals, among others, but many facilities, like abortion clinics, are unregulated. In Colorado, dentists, who also engage in surgical procedures while treating patients, are not licensed by CDPHE. Dentistry is also not tracked in political policy and activism in the way that abortion is, but in 2015 the Dallas Morning News reported that since 2010, Texas, which requires dentists to report deaths, has received at least 85 death reports from dentists.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2021 there were five deaths related to induced abortions nationally. In 1972 (the year before Roe v. Wade), a total of 24 women died from causes known to be associated with legal abortions, and 39 died as a result of known illegal abortions. Arguably, abortion is safer, statistically, than a root canal, although Texas’ maternal mortality rate has risen since the state enacted abortion restrictions in 2021.
While abortion facilities in Colorado are not regulated by CDPHE, the care provided by the doctors and nurses working in those facilities is regulated by DORA. “The healthcare Boards and Programs within the Division of Professions and Occupations (DPO) license and regulate individual healthcare providers,” said a spokesperson from DORA in an email. “The Division has no regulatory authority over the types of [abortion] facilities you mention; nor is there a specifically required profession or designation from DORA for individuals to work in one of these facilities. Individual healthcare providers are subject to specific statutory scope of practice criteria — which may include abortion — based on their respective practice acts.”
While abortion facilities are not licensed and regulated by one specific agency in Colorado, the suggestion that abortion is unregulated is false.
