My regular reader (Hi Jeff!) will recall that I’m a pretty big fan of our remarkable governor. And that is not just because back in 2008, when we were both running for United States Congress, he sent my team a box of really good cookies after I provided some minor aid during the Denver-based Democratic Convention. Rather, I’ve just been impressed from the start with Jared Polis on a number of levels.

The reason I again rise to sing his praises is the Colorado Politics story that reported on Polis’s decision to use his executive order ability to issue a directive, to all state agencies, forbidding them from providing information, to include medical records and such, to any state that may impose criminal or civil penalties on women who seek abortions or those who aid them in that effort.

His order — D 2022 032 — is an important and powerful message to women, especially in the Rocky Mountain west, that Colorado remains a safe place for those making the exceptionally difficult choice to end a pregnancy. As Polis put it: “We are taking needed action to protect and defend individual freedom and protect the privacy of Coloradans. This important step will ensure that Colorado’s thriving economy and workforce are not impacted based on personal health decisions that are wrongly being criminalized in other states.”

I’m not hear to relitigate the abortion issue. I see this as an intensely personal decision, made during difficult times, and I’m pleased to see our governor be a beacon of liberty in an increasingly less-free America. I personally have deep concerns about abortion, but I’m also quite sure that it is none of my business what others do with their bodies. The irony that the Republican party has become the radical party of no abortions — no exceptions — is not lost on me, given that they used to claim to be the party of small government and states’ rights.

Back when I was teaching the Constitution at the Air Force Academy, I would always have to explain to the cadets that an “activist” court didn’t mean liberal, as many right-wing commentators asserted, but rather a court that is willing to rip up long-standing decisions and precedents as it seeks to remake America in a particular image. While cases like Brown vs Board of Education seemed activist to some, these cases actually harkened back to notions the founders had regarding liberty and freedom (though, most certainly, not for everyone at that time).

The Supreme Court, now a fully political branch of government, has adopted a radical and activist mindset that is unprecedented in the modern era. After the then-GOP Senate leaders found a way to steal one SCOTUS seat under President Barack Obama (claiming a president shouldn’t make a nomination in his last year) and then to steal a second (when conveniently completely reversing that claim made only a few years earlier), the so-called Roberts court has turned into the Trump court, willing to take on any case that the far-right majority thinks might be useful in tamping down environmental regulations, election protections, and more. If you thought this last term, with the New York gun decision and the reversal of Roe was something, wait until next term, where they have already decided to hear a case that could fundamentally alter the idea of what makes up a state legislature, with the implications on who can pick the winners in elections very much on the table. Trump 2024 anyone?

Given that our neighboring states are likely to impose severe and binding rules banning abortion in virtually every case (most have no exception for rape or incest but may offer some relief if the woman would otherwise die, how kind of them), Polis’s action is an important step in helping at least some women find a safe place in which to seek the medical treatment they and their doctor think is appropriate. The irony (I’m using that word a lot here) that Polis used a “state’s rights” argument must rile the far-right, who often clung to that claim when it came to issues like deciding who gets to vote and alike.

Bill Clinton had it right when he said our goal should be to make abortion safe, available and rare. If you really want to reduce the number of abortions in the US, you should support greater funding for Planned Parenthood, given that the majority of their services have to do with family planning and birth control. Education and access to contraceptives are the key (though Justice Clarence Thomas noted in his Roe concurrence that we should revisit that freedom, along with same-sex marriage. My irony meter just exploded. Apparently, Thomas would like us to back up in history just far enough to take on those issues, but not quite far back enough to make his own marriage illegal, but I digress…)

Governor Polis again leads the nation and does what is right, and I’m only partially talking about the cookies. We are lucky to have him, as will be women who find sanctuary in the Centennial State.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.