Democratic state senators gathered Wednesday on the 52nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade to advance bill SJR25-004, which affirms anew Colorado’s commitment to abortion rights and designate Jan. 22 of each year as “Reproductive Rights and Justice Day.”

Cosponsors Sens. Lisa Cutter, D-Littleton, and Dafna Michaelson Jenet, D-Commerce City, both spoke in support of the bill.

“Coloradans and the majority of Americans support abortion across racial, gender, and party lines,” Cutter said. “Today, we honor the past and the landmark decision of Roe v. Wade while looking to the future and our vision of true bodily autonomy.”

Michaelson Jenet emphasized her hopes for Colorado’s ongoing fight for abortion rights and its personal importance to her 10 years ago. Michaelson Jenet said she was 20 weeks pregnant and overjoyed from a “very wanted pregnancy” that took years of trying.

During a doctor’s visit, Michaelson Jenet said she was told that the baby no longer had a heartbeat. When she began bleeding, her doctor gave her two options — either go to the emergency room and risk an infection or death or have an abortion.

“I needed that abortion to save my life, and I’m grateful that I live in Colorado,” she said. Had she lived in another state, she said, “I could be arrested for murdering her baby, who was already dead.”

“I could have died,” she added.

While no Republicans spoke on the resolution, the bill passed on a party-line vote of 21-11.

Last November, Colorado voters enshrined the right to an abortion in the state Constitution, with a margin in favor of almost 24 percentage points. That followed passage of a 2022 bill to place the right to an abortion into state statutes. That measure passed following a nearly 24-hour filibuster by House Republicans.

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned its previous landmark decision Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Wednesday’s resolution comes on the same day as the 50th anniversary of the opening of Boulder Abortion Clinic, according to founder Dr. Warren Hern.

“Boulder Abortion Clinic,’” Dr. Hern wrote, “is no longer just the statement of identity of a single medical office or solely the vision and purpose of one doctor.”

Hern said the clinic stands today as “a symbol of resistance to tyranny and oppression …  It is a statement that women’s bodies do not belong to the state—or to anyone else. They belong to the women who live in them.”

Dr. Hern, 86, said his purpose now is to “assure that the foundations are laid for the continuation of this private medical practice in the best medical, administrative, and leadership hands I can find.”