Two bills seeking to bolster abortion rights in Colorado cleared their first hurdle Wednesday night, receiving approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

If passed by the full legislature, the bills would shield abortion patients and providers from interstate investigations, and prohibit “deceptive” advertising from crisis pregnancy centers, deemed “anti-abortion clinics” by critics.

Critics of the efforts charge they make a mockery of other states’ laws on abortion, while defending crisis pregnancy centers as clinics that provide real services.

The bills are the first legislative action Colorado lawmakers have taken up on the subject since the Supreme Court overturned national abortion protections in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling last year. Two months prior to the ruling, state lawmakers enshrined abortion as a fundamental right with the Reproductive Health Equity Act.

The first of the bills, Senate Bill 188, would protect abortion patients and providers giving and receiving care in Colorado from facing criminal or civil consequences from other states in which abortion is illegal. Fourteen states have passed laws banning or limiting abortion, with many more currently trying to enact blocked bans.

“We must take a leading role in protecting the fundamental rights of our citizens,” said Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis, D-Longmont, sponsor of SB 188. “Bounty hunter laws have created a climate of fear and intimidation and it will prevent Colorado health care workers from offering care and prevent patients who are trying to simply seek care.”

The bill builds off an executive order signed by Gov. Jared Polis in July, directing state agencies to withhold records from states that may impose criminal or civil penalties on those who receive or provide abortions in Colorado. The bill would enshrine this executive order into state law, as well as prohibit the state from recognizing criminal prosecutions or civil lawsuits regarding legally-protected abortion care.

In addition to abortion, the bill would also extend these protections to “gender-affirming care” received by transgender individuals. Other states have moved to ban or limit gender-affirming care, with more than 20 states considering such legislation in 2023. Gender-affirming care includes social, psychological or medical interventions, such as hormone therapy and surgical procedures.

Critics of the bill argued that out-of-state residents receiving abortions in Colorado could harm their home state or violate the home state’s law. For example, if a patient gets abortion-inducing medication from Colorado then takes it in their home state where abortion is illegal, or if the home state has laws that prohibit residents from traveling out of state for abortion care.

“We should respect the laws of other states,” said Tom Perille, a physician with Democrats for Life Colorado. “If a Wisconsin physician was actively performing conversion therapy, prescribing drugs via telehealth to a Colorado resident to try to change their orientation, should Colorado have no recourse to enforce our laws against conversion therapy? Of course not.”

Proponents countered that Colorado should be a safe haven for people seeking abortion, particularly if their home state’s abortion ban puts their health and safety at risk.

Lauren Miller said she traveled from her home in Texas to Colorado to receive an abortion after one of her twins was determined to be unviable. Miller said continuing to carry the unviable twin risked killing both her and the viable twin, but Texas’s law did not allow her any options to terminate the pregnancy.

In the month following the Dobbs decision, the Colorado-based Cobalt Abortion Fund reported that 94% of its clients seeking practical abortion support came from out of state, including 66% from Texas alone. In January, 750 people traveled to Colorado Planned Parenthoods from out of state for abortion care – compared to only 1,500 people during the entirety of 2021, according to Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.

“There’s a certain terror of being hunted by your own state when all you’re trying to do is access health care,” Miller said. “(Texas’s) law nearly cost me and my viable twin our lives. … Please do not abandon us to the cruelty imposed by the leadership in our states who are preventing health care that they do not understand.”

Seven states and Washington D.C. have already passed similar protections against interstate investigations regarding abortions and 12 governors have issued executive orders establishing such protections, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights. Other states including Washington, New Mexico, Minnesota and Vermont are currently considering similar legislation.

The second bill, Senate Bill 190, targets crisis pregnancy centers, which counsel pregnant women against having an abortion and to instead choose to carry the pregnancy to term, with parenting or adoption as an alternative.

The bill would prohibit crisis pregnancy centers from directly or indirectly advertising abortions, emergency contraceptives or referrals for abortions or emergency contraceptives that they don’t actually provide, classifying it as “deceptive advertising.”

In Colorado, there are 51 of these crisis pregnancy centers, compared to 20 abortion clinics.

“When someone is making a decision to continue or end a pregnancy, they deserve accurate information about all of their options so they can determine what is best for their health and wellbeing,” said bill sponsor Sen. Janice Marchman, D-Loveland. “All people have the right to truth in advertising and shouldn’t have to worry about being misled or deceived when seeking essential health care services.”

Marchman said the centers pretend to offer abortion care but don’t, using “disinformation, intimidation, shame and delay tactics” to prevent people from accessing abortion care.

The American Medical Society Journal of Ethics called the centers unethical, claiming they spread misinformation and give the impression that they offer medical services and advice, “yet they are exempt from regulatory, licensure, and credentialing oversight that apply to health care facilities.” A 2012 study from the National Library of Medicine claimed that 86% of the centers provide misinformation on abortion.

Supporters of crisis pregnancy centers denied misleading patients, arguing that they legitimately provide services, including health education, ultrasound and counseling. They said SB 190 would unfairly limit their advertisement, potentially prohibiting them from saying they offer “help with unplanned pregnancies” without specifying the services provided.

Dr. Karysse Trandem of Save the Storks, a nonprofit that partners with crisis pregnancy centers, said she has encountered “thousands” of women who said they regretted getting an abortion and wished they were given information about alternative options at the time, which she said the centers provide.

“It is a gift and a blessing to see women strengthened to make a decision that is best for them by giving them the health care at a pregnancy resource clinic so that they don’t have any regrets in the future,” Trandem said. “If this (bill) were to pass, it would have an enormous negative effect on women’s health care, on women’s right to choose.”

SB 190 would also classify providing abortion “reversal” treatment as unprofessional conduct. The controversial practice claims that the hormone progesterone can stop a medication-based abortion after a patient has completed the first part of the two-step process.

Crisis pregnancy centers support the practice, pointing to a small-scale 2012 study which found that four of six women who had begun medication abortions were able to carry their pregnancies to term after taking progesterone. However, the study has been criticized for having methodological flaws and subsequent research has concluded that there is insufficient evidence to support abortion reversal treatment.

A larger 2019 University of California study attempted to test the effectiveness of abortion pill reversal, but the study was ended prematurely due to safety concerns after three participants required ambulance transport to a hospital for treatment of severe vaginal bleeding, NPR reported. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also rejects prescribing progesterone to reverse abortions, saying it is “not based on science and do not meet clinical standards.”

Following 10 hours of witness testimony and debate among lawmakers, both bills passed the Senate Judiciary Committee with votes of 3-2 at 11:30 p.m. All Democrats voted in support of the bills and all Republicans voted in opposition.

The bills will now be sent to the full Senate for a vote in the coming weeks.