Beginning on January 1, 2026, Colorado employee health insurance plans will cover abortion care and require the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing to authorize reimbursements for abortion care under publicly funded insurance, including community members with coverage through Health First Colorado, and the Reproductive Health Care Program, following the passage of Amendment 79 in November.
Colorado legislators are moving to strengthen Colorado’s shield law, which protects abortion patients and providers from prosecution by states where abortion is illegal. In December, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Dr. Margaret Daley Carpenter of New York for providing medication abortion to Texas residents in violation of state law. Last week, a Louisiana grand jury indicted Carpenter on similar charges. These cases could challenge the shield laws in place in states where abortion is legal.
Colorado Democrats are moving to recognize the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision by designating Jan. 22 as “Reproductive Rights and Justice Day” in Colorado.
Colorado Times Recorder’s 2024 reproductive justice coverage was focused largely on efforts to pass Amendment 79 and coverage of congressional candidates, particularly Jeff Crank in CD5 and Gabe Evans in CD8. Additionally, we reported on municipal efforts to ban abortion in Pueblo, and how municipalities like Pueblo are funding anti-abortion centers, and how school districts like Woodland Park are using anti-abortion centers to teach sex ed.
Nicole Hunt, an analyst and spokesperson for conservative Christian powerhouse Focus on the Family, argues that the spending gap between pro- and anti-abortion groups is one of the contributing factors to the success of abortion ballot measures this year.
Colorado Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Fort Lupton) is challenging U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo in one of the most-watched elections this year. Colorado’s Congressional District 8 could decide control of Congress, and competing PACs have poured more than $15 million into the race. Like many Republicans running since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, Evans has been trying to walk a fine line on abortion, an issue that has proven to be overwhelmingly electorally popular.
The third highest-ranking official in the federal government has done little to conceal the extent of his Christian nationalism. House Speaker Mike Johnson has decried American culture as ‘dark and depraved.’ He has compared himself to Moses. He has called the separation of church & state “a misnomer.” And this weekend, he was in Colorado, stumping for Gabe Evans in the seat which Johnson says may decide control of the U.S. House of Representatives in November.
An old adage insists that “all politics is local,” but it’s not true. The rapid advance of the internet age has flipped the adage on its head: these days, all politics is national. With Fox News, CNN, and Facebook blasting their signals into every corner of the once vast and untrammeled wilderness, truly local issues have fallen by the wayside. Now, local races are dominated by the headwinds of national political discourse, and local candidates are incentivized to rhetorically overextend themselves in service of signaling to the tribe. It is a politics of pantomime, with potholes and passing lanes supplanted by abortion and immigration as the issues du jour – in races for offices which will have no jurisdiction over either – and too few candidates speaking to the particulars and prerogatives of the positions they seek.
Pueblo City Councilor Regina Maestri is considering introducing an anti-abortion ordinance. Again.
During an Aug. 24 appearance on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), former President Donald Trump’s running mate, said Trump would veto a federal abortion ban. In 2018, during his last term, Trump supported a 20-week abortion ban. During a March radio interview, Trump seemed to support a 15-week abortion ban.
