The 2022 Colorado law that affirms the right to an abortion is the most significant legislation since 1967 – and maybe even before that.

It’s well known that Colorado was the first state in the nation to enact a law that allowed a woman to obtain an abortion. But that 1967 law is nowhere near as permissive as this year’s legislation. 

A 32-year-old lawmaker in his second term, Rep. Dick Lamm, a Denver Democrat, sponsored the 1967 law that, while allowing abortion, also put several hurdles in the way of a woman seeking the procedure. Under that law, abortion was allowed only in cases of rape, incest, fetal abnormality or to protect the life of the mother. In addition, the law, signed on April 25, 1967 by Republican Gov. John Love, also required permission from the husband and a review by a three-doctor panel. Finally, the abortion was allowed only up to 16 weeks of pregnancy.

The 1967 law did more than legalize abortion – it overturned previous state law that banned it. 

In 1891, the General Assembly adopted Senate Bill 310, which criminalized the “procuring” of an abortion, a law that went after the providers, rather than the women seeking an abortion. And in 1909, a state law prohibited osteopaths from performing abortions.

People were convicted for “procuring” an abortion. One of the most notable cases occurred in 1964, just three years before the law permitting abortions was signed. Three men, including Robert Chesterfield Stewart of Pueblo, were charged with procuring an abortion and conspiracy to procure an abortion. A search warrant found a rubber tube, syringe, white gown, expansion clamps and devices, “Luenbach” drug, and abortive solutions. The courts sentenced the three to terms of up to 10 years in prison in 1966.

Love, the governor, granted Stewart clemency in 1966 because he was terminally ill. Stewart, 78, died a year later.   

The 1967 law also launched activism in the anti-abortion movement. 

Just three months after Love signed the 1967 law, three anti-abortion activists formed Colorado Right to Life: Mary Rita Urbish, Charles Onofrio, and John Archibold.

The national organization soon followed. CRTL began an annual “March for Life” in 1974 that continues to this day.

Efforts to overturn the 1967 law, whether by lawmakers or by anti-abortion activists, began almost immediately. 

In 1969, lawmakers attempted to pass a bill that would allow a doctor or hospital to refuse to perform an abortion without liability. As was the case with almost every measure attempting to limit abortion, it failed.

The threat of vetoes from Democratic governors, beginning with Lamm in 1975 and continuing through the terms of Gov. Roy Romer, which ended in 1998, kept anti-abortion laws off the books.

In 1979, Rep. Sam Zakhem, later an ambassador to Bahrain under President Ronald Reagan, was among the sponsors of a bill that sought to ban public funding of abortions. While it failed, voters approved a constitutional amendment to do the same five years later. Lamm permitted a bill affirming that decision to become law without his signature, decrying the voters’ decision in a lengthy signing statement.

“Amendment 3 represents the ultimate denial of choice,” Lamm wrote. “For women without money or hope, the denial of publicly-funded abortions represents the denial of safe, legal abortions.” Lamm also noted in that 1985 signing statement that the state in 1982 and 1983 had paid $422,000 for 1,800 abortions for Medicaid-eligible women.

The 1976 Hyde amendment, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1980, “has proven itself to be the greatest domestic abortion reduction law ever enacted by Congress,” according to a 2016 statement by Douglas Johnson, legislative director of National Right to Life.

That wasn’t the final word on the matter. A ballot measure in 1988, to overturn the 1984 voter decision, failed by more than 20 percentage points.

Republican lawmakers began to ramp up efforts to ban or limit abortions, beginning in 1997, one year before Romer’s time in office ended. Republicans had the trifecta control of the House, Senate and governor’s mansion, beginning in 1998, with the election of Gov. Bill Owens. But his election didn’t result in an abortion ban, despite at least four measures attempting to do so in 2000 and 2001. 

Voters got involved again – this time with a 1998 constitutional amendment on parental notification. The Colorado Supreme Court struck down that measure, but lawmakers got it into state law in 2003.

Twenty more efforts to ban or otherwise limit abortions failed in the 2000s; another 38 failed in the 2010s.  

In the meantime, Colorado Right to Life launched “personhood” ballot measures in 2008 and 2010. The 2008 measure, led by Kristi Burton Brown, now the chair of the Colorado Republican Party, failed on a vote of 73.21% to 26.79%. The 2010 measure fared only slightly better, losing by 40 percentage points. A 2012 personhood measure never made it to the ballot; a 2014 measure also failed, 64.87% to 35.13%. 

The most recent ballot measure in 2020, which sought to ban abortions after 22 weeks, also failed. It was the seventh major attempt in 14 years to ban or limit abortions.

In 2015, however, the abortion fight reached fever pitch, and Colorado later became a member of a club it didn’t want to join – states that experienced abortion clinic violence.

The Center for Medical Progress, an anti-abortion organization, released a doctored video that allegedly showed a Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains official discussing fees for aborted fetus body parts. The unedited videos showed that Planned Parenthood requested only a fee to cover costs without any profit.

That video led to a Nov. 13, 2015 hearing at the state Capitol from an ad hoc committee, the Republican Study Committee of Colorado. Lawmakers who convened the ad hoc panel demanded state officials and higher education representatives answer questions about trafficking of fetal remains. Those witnesses declined to appear.

Two weeks later, Robert Lewis Dear, Jr. of Hartsel walked into the Planned Parenthood clinic on Colorado Springs’ north side and started shooting. Three people, including a University of Colorado-Colorado Springs police officer who was also a pastor, died, and nine others were injured during a five-hour standoff. Dear, who reportedly said “no more baby parts,” an alleged reference to the Planned Parenthood video, was found mentally incompetent to stand trial and has been incarcerated at the state mental hospital in Pueblo ever since. 

While efforts to restrict or ban abortion failed, Democrats’ attempts to expand abortion access succeeded.

In 1993, Romer signed Colorado’s “bubble” law, which created a 100-foot bubble around abortion clinics, a policy the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in 2000. U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Denver, then a member of the General Assembly, sponsored the law.  

Other efforts included a law allowing pharmacists to provide emergency contraception, which Gov. Bill Owens vetoed in 2005 but signed into law in 2006.

The fight to ban abortion, however, is far from over.

An anti-abortion ballot measure, Initiative #56, backed by United for Life, is currently collecting petition signatures in hopes of appearing on the November ballot.

The measure defines “murder of a child” as “intentionally causing the death of a living human being at any time prior to, during, or after birth while the child is under the age of 18 years by using or prescribing any instrument, medicine, drug, or any other substance, device, or means, and causing death.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to add 1988 ballot measure on public funding of abortions. Colorado Politics thanks the Office of Legislative Legal Services and the Legislative Council staff for their assistance in getting historical records for this story.