Emergency contraception (EC) should be the standard of care for all health care facilities that treat victims of sexual assault. Emergency contraception is a safe and effective form of birth control that can prevent pregnancy when taken up to five days after unprotected sex. In Colorado, one in four women has experienced a sexual assault. Requiring emergency health care facilities to provide information about emergency contraception is a common-sense step we can take to reduce the number of pregnancies that result from sexual assault, and offer some comfort to rape victims.
This resolution directs the Governor, the Department of Public Health and Environment, the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, and the Department of Education to consider cost-effective public policies to reduce unintended pregnancy rates in Colorado.
HB 1292 (Todd, Windels), "Responsible Sex Education," is an important part of prevention first policies to reduce unintended pregnancy in Colorado and to help create healthy women, children and families. This bill would establish standards for local school districts to use when developing sex-education curricula. Colorado lacks a common set of standards for instruction on the important topic of human sexuality. Recent surveys also reveal many students receive incomplete, inaccurate information regarding human sexuality. Colorado students and parents expect health education programs to teach scientifically established facts.
Senate Bill 71, mandates that anyone who causes the death of a fetus be charged with first-degree murder. This bill could have a chilling effect on women’s health care in Colorado and result in law-abiding doctors and women being charged with a capitol offense for performing or choosing an abortion. This is a back-door attempt to ban abortion in Colorado.
Senate Bill 143 (Renfroe, Lambert), "End Freedom of Choice," would ban all abortions in Colorado except those performed to save the life of the pregnant woman. There are no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest. This unconstitutional measure violates a woman's protected right to choose an abortion held in Roe v. Wade and makes no exception for the preservation of the health of the mother as found in Roe and upheld in Planned Parenthood v. Casey and Stenberg v. Carhart. SB 143 also would change the definition of pregnancy, which would have a chilling impact on reproductive health care for Colorado women.
