Colorado voters will get to decide this fall whether to make abortions illegal after 22 weeks’ gestation.
The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office announced Monday that the group Due Date Too Late collected enough signatures for Initiative 120 to make the November ballot. The group fell short initially but a judge said it could wait until stay-at-home orders lifted to “cure,” or make up the shortfall.
Colorado is one of the few states that doesn’t currently have a law limiting abortion later in pregnancy, so it has become a destination for women who seek one for medical or other reasons.
The state’s voters have rejected so-called personhood ballot measures three times previously — most recently by a 2-1 margin in 2016 — so this initiative takes a different approach. The measure would make it a misdemeanor for medical providers to perform abortions after 22 weeks for any reason except to save the life of the mother. The mother would not face criminal penalties.
Due Date Too Late’s signature-gathering efforts were complicated when the coronavirus began spreading across Colorado in March. When the group came up short on signatures, it sued for extra time to collect more. The judge ruled the 15-day clock wouldn’t start until after the state stay-at-home order was lifted, and more than 38,000 valid signatures were then collected, the Secretary of State’s Office determined.
“The numbers handed in are indicative of the overwhelming support for Initiative 120 and we are prepared and excited for the next step in the campaign,” Lauren Castillo, spokesperson for the Due Date Too Late campaign, said in a statement Monday.
But Cobalt, the statewide reproductive rights organization, predicted the measure will fail.
“Initiative 120 means government intrusion on decisions for the family with a much wanted pregnancy facing an unimaginable and heart-wrenching decision when faced with a lethal fetal diagnosis,” President Karen Middleton said in a statement. “It means government intrusion on the parent being forced to decide between carrying a pregnancy to term or beginning life-saving cancer treatment. It means government intrusion into decisions made by a pregnant person who has faced significant barriers to access abortion care while under a COVID-19 lockdown.”
The latest vote on abortion in Colorado comes as several different approaches to stopping legal abortions in other states are being tested in the courts.
