A state court on Monday allowed the legal challenge to Colorado’s parental notification law to proceed. Colorado law currently withholds abortion care from young people for at least 48 hours after a parent has been notified; it also fails to account for the personal circumstances of individual young people.
Last year, Colorado abortion provider and outspoken abortion advocate Dr. Rebecca Cohen filed a lawsuit against Gov. Jared Polis, the Colorado Medical Board, and the state of Colorado over parental notification requirements for minors seeking abortions. The lawsuit argues that the parental notification requirement discriminates against young people’s right to an abortion under Amendment 79, and violates their rights under Colorado’s Equal Rights Amendment.
“Colorado’s Parental Notice Requirement intrudes on young people’s privacy, and in some cases risks their health and safety,” said Cohen in a news release last year. “The law undermines the sacred doctor-patient relationship and can push young people further away from safe, timely medical care. I am proud to support young people in this legal challenge.”
Monday’s ruling came after the defendants moved to dismiss the suit for lack of standing. Denver District Court Judge Ian Kellogg ruled that Cohen adequately alleged that the Parental Notification Act is unconstitutional.
“No one should be forced to remain pregnant, give birth, and become a parent against their will,” said Rupali Sharma, Co-Director, Litigation at the Lawyering Project in a news release. “Colorado’s constitution protects the right to abortion regardless of age and this ruling means the work to ensure young people can get critical, time-sensitive health care will continue.”
Every major medical organization whose members provide adolescent or reproductive healthcare, including the American Medical Association, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, opposes forced parental involvement laws.
Gov. Polis, who signed the Reproductive Health Equity Act into law in 2022, did so with a signing statement that included the point that nothing in that bill, which codified the right to abortion access in Colorado law, made changes to the existing parental notification requirement.
Cohen’s lawsuit argues that in addition to causing undue stress to the patient, the parental notification requirement “compromises the doctor-patient relationship of all young people seeking an abortion.”
Since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, Republican-led states have moved to ban or restrict abortion, leading to influx of out-of-state patients in Colorado. The additional burden of travel imposed on patients has led to delays in care and an increase in the number of abortions later in pregnancy. Cohen’s lawsuit argues that parental notification requirements increase delays in care.
“Because it is far more practicable for busy clinicians to notify a parent of an abortion by mail rather than in person, the Parental Notice Requirement delays some young people’s abortions by at least three days,” the lawsuit notes. “This delay compounds the delays caused by long travel distances, wait times for abortion appointments, and young people’s tendency to discover they are pregnant later than adults.”
Former Archbishop Samuel Aquila of the Denver Diocese predicted Amendment 79’s impact on parental notification. “Another troubling aspect of this amendment is its ban on parental notification laws,” he wrote in a September 2024 open letter. “The pro-abortion lobby places words such as ‘shall not impede’ on a ‘right to abortion’ in their amendments intentionally — it means that all laws protecting parental rights are nullified. There is no age restriction on abortion in Colorado, and [Amendment] 79 would prevent parents from being informed if their 15-year-old daughter has an abortion. Parents must have the right to know if their adolescent daughter is being pressured into getting an abortion by their boyfriend or someone in authority such as their coach, teacher, school nurse or counselor.”
