abortion
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THIS WEEK AT THE COLORADO CAPITOL | Week of March 21, 2022
Here are legislative committee hearings and other events of note for the week ahead at the Colorado state Capitol. Committee schedules are subject to change. The daily schedule is available on the legislature’s website. Options for public testimony during committee hearings can be found here. House regulations regarding remote testimony can be found here. Senate regulations are here. According…
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State Senate panel mirrors House, approves abortion bill in another late-night hearing
Just one week removed from a 14-hour hearing in the House Health & Insurance Committee, it was the Colorado Senate Judiciary Committee’s turn for a late-night hearing on House Bill 1279, the Reproductive Health Equity Act. The Senate hearing was only minutes shorter, wrapping up just after midnight Friday morning. More than 200 witnesses signed up…
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Title Board revises ballot title for abortion criminalization initiative, advances pair of property tax caps
The Title Board declined to revoke the ballot title previously awarded to a proposed ballot initiative criminalizing abortion, but it amended the description on Tuesday to more explicitly inform voters the measure would prohibit murdering a child “regardless of whether the child is a fetus.” The three-member board previously set a title for Initiative #56 in February…
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House Democrats give preliminary approval to bill affirming right to abortion after 23-hour debate
The House on Saturday wrapped up more than 23 hours of debate – likely a state record – on a proposal to enshrine the unequivocal right to an abortion in state law. The lengthy debate, which began Friday morning and ended at 10:17 a.m., is likely a General Assembly record. House Bill 1279 was adopted on a…
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Bill to protect abortion rights wins approval from Democratic-controlled House panel
Lawmakers worked overnight and into early Thursday morning on legislation that seeks to enshrine the unequivocal right to an abortion in state law. The House Health & Insurance Committee approved House Bill 1279 along a 7-4 party-line vote just after 3:40 a.m. More than 300 people signed up to testify on the bill, also known…
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House panel kills trio of GOP-sponsored anti-abortion bills
Three anti-abortion bills, sponsored by conservatives in the House Republican caucus, all met the same fate in hearings that started Wednesday afternoon and stretched into the early morning hours of Thursday. All three failed on party-line votes. Two of the bills are perennial attempts by the more conservative wing of the GOP caucus to either…
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Title Board advances ballot initiatives on criminalizing abortion, expanding ‘natural medicine’
The Title Board awarded ballot titles on Wednesday to three proposed statewide initiatives, one of which would criminalize abortions while the other two would expand access to psychoactive medicine. Initiative #56 would outlaw the “murder of a child,” which would include intentionally causing the death of “a living human being at any time prior to,…
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Democratic women’s caucus to focus on abortion, health care, updating state’s harassment laws
The General Assembly’s Democratic women’s caucus on Wednesday rolled out its 2022 agenda, which features four bills the caucus says will benefit all Colorado women. State Rep. Lisa Cutter, a Littleton Democrat who co-chairs the caucus, said they will use their “collective power” to advance policies for women, regardless of socioeconomic background, race, disability, sexual…
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Title Board declines to advance personhood ballot initiative with Texas-style enforcement feature
A state panel has blocked on procedural grounds a proposed ballot initiative that would generally ban abortions contrary to Supreme Court precedent, label fetuses as children, and include an enforcement mechanism similar to the one used in a controversial Texas anti-abortion law. Initiative #51, tentatively captioned “Prohibit Intentional Killing of a Living Child,” would make it…
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Hickenlooper talks about his green goal in online town hall
U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper still has high hopes of putting a price on carbon and safeguarding public lands in Colorado. The Democratic Senate freshman from Denver had hoped to include a tax on carbon in President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better stimulus package. He holds out that hope, Hickenlooper told constituents in a virtual town…