Colorado’s so-called “Right to Abortion”

Constitutional Amendment 79

The 2024 Colorado Amendment 79 made Colorado a the most extreme abortion state in the country, constitutionalizing a so-called “right to abortion” for all 40 weeks of pregnancy without any restrictions, including for the health of the mother or preborn baby. Furthermore, the amendment removed section 50 of Article V in the Colorado Constitution, which previously prohibited taxpayer dollars from funding abortion. The sponsors of Amendment 79 and legislative council argued that Amendment 79 had “zero fiscal note,” but it became clear with the 2025 General Assembly’s passage of HB25-183 and SB25B-002 that was pretense to ensure passage of Amendment 79 and to fund abortion with millions of taxpayer dollars each year, which Colorado now does.

Amendment 79 is a massive overreach of state government into:

• Parental rights

In July 2025, Colorado abortionist Rebecca Cohen sued the state against the parental notification law, which requires parents or guardians be notified at least 48 hours before a minor undergoes an abortion. She cites Amendment 79’s language to not “impede against access to abortion” in her injunction.

• Taxpayer rights

Because of the removal of the constitutional prohibition on taxpayer funding for abortion in Amendment 79, SB25-183 was passed in 2025, which created a minimum $1.5 million dollar state funded allocation for abortion (with no cap on spending). During the 2025 special session, the state allocated an additional $4.5 million to Planned Parenthood for services banned federally. Colorado taxpayers now pay at-least between $8 million and $10 million annually to support unrestricted abortion for all 40 weeks of pregnancy and Planned Parenthood and other abortion facilities.

• Healthcare of Women

Amendment 79 exacerbated the Colorado abortion industry, which already is not accountable for women’s health. Because abortion clinics remain unregulated, more Colorado women, and the hundreds of women traveling to Colorado each year for abortion, are subject to harms of abortion. Colorado has several documented deaths and injuries to young women in recent years because of its failure to regulate abortion clinics at the same standard as other surgical institutions, including eighteen-year-old Alexis "Lexi" Arguello who died on February 6, 2025 from an amniotic fluid embolism following a second-trimester surgical abortion at the ⁠Planned Parenthood facility in Fort Collins. Planned Parenthood failed to provide Lexi the immediate medical intervention needed to save her life. Even more women suffer from the psychological trauma of abortion without support or necessary care.

• Sanctity of Life

At its core, Amendment 79 and Colorado’s complicit participation in the grave evil of abortion violates the sanctity of life of millions of preborn children whose lives are ended brutally and painfully each year through unrestricted surgical and chemical abortion.

   The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment data show that there were 486 abortions at or after 21 weeks’ gestation in 2022. At 21 weeks, a preborn child is viable, which is when a baby can survive outside the womb. This represents nearly 4% of abortions in Colorado and not the 1% cited nationally. Planned Parenthood’s former policy arm, the Guttmacher Institute, reports that abortion figures for Colorado are 40 percent higher than data provided by the Colorado Department of Public Health. In a 2023 Atlantic article, former Boulder abortionist Dr. Hern said that “at least 50%” and “sometimes more” of the late abortions he conducts are on healthy babies. Other late-term abortionists have moved to Colorado and began performing late-term abortions since the 2022 Reproductive Health Equity Act was enacted, including LeRoy Carhart in Pueblo and Benedict Landgren in Denver. Colorado continues to be a leader in unregulated late-term abortion on healthy moms and healthy babies, and Amendment 79 worsened this reality.

The “no” campaign Right to Know CO against Amendment 79 collected polling data on Colorado voters that showed if Coloradans from both sides of the political aisle knew what Amendment 79 would do, they would have voted against it. Amendment 79 was considered extreme even for many Coloradans who support abortion, but the funding behind the pro-abortion lobby was too great to beat in Colorado – and now Coloradans, especially women and children, suffer the impact.

Pro-Life Colorado is the unified coalition of over 50 pro-life organizations across Colorado, working through education and policy to protect the value and dignity of every preborn human being from the moment of conception and to advocate for pregnant women and families. The Colorado Catholic Conference is a proud member of Pro-Life Colorado and supports its work to cultivate a culture of life of Colorado and the eventual overturn of Amendment 79.

See the Catholic Conference video on Amendment 79 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7bEhqOfPo8

See Catholic Conference executive director Brittany Vessely debate COBALT advocates strategic partnership director Dani Newsum on the harms of Amendment 79 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnprnoFB5dE