First things first: You can get an abortion in Colorado, whether procedural or medication abortion. If you are on Medicaid, you can still get an abortion in Colorado. Individual providers can still provide abortion care to people who need it, regardless of whether they have public or private insurance. And if you have a problem paying for your abortion, please reach out to the Cobalt Abortion Fund for help.
What’s happening to Planned Parenthood is terrible, it’s very real, and it is hurting access to abortion care in Colorado. Planned Parenthood was targeted by President Donald Trump’s budget bill, just as they have been for years, and their patients are paying the price. The chaos is intentional: health care providers are scrambling to adapt to the latest court rulings, patients are seeing their appointments cancelled, rescheduled, and moved around, and nobody has a clear idea of what’s next.
The recent federal budget bill, which should be called the Forced Birth Bill, penalizes Planned Parenthood not only for offering abortion services but also for providing comprehensive reproductive health care, including STI testing and contraception. It is a direct attack on bodily autonomy and the right to control a person’s own body, their reproductive health and freedom, and their social, economic, and political power.
The bill imposes a punitive one-year ban on Planned Parenthood for offering these services, preventing them from receiving federal Medicaid funding during that period. The result has been a denial of basic health care to people most in need of it, and a denial of control, dignity and self-determination.
As current and former providers, we are feeling the attacks ourselves, just as we did in those terrible days right after the Dobbs decision. The deliberate trauma hurts everyone. And it has again created a crisis of care here in a state where abortion is protected both in law and in the state Constitution with Amendment 79.
It’s important to understand Amendment 79 is not nullified by the federal bill. Instead, it becomes even more vital, making it more important to ensure Coloradans’ guaranteed access to abortion care. Coloradans have a constitutional right to access abortion under Amendment 79. But now, thanks to Trump’s budget bill, Coloradans are being forced to navigate a system that delays, deflects, and denies.
Reproductive freedom is not a theoretical policy value. It’s a lived need. We have heard that need every day, from Colorado patients and those fleeing abortion bans in other states. It’s one that fundamentally affects the present and the future of our patients.
We are under no illusions that as abortion providers we are all under threat and that abortion opponents will come for us, too. The goal has always been to ban abortion, whether it’s by explicit legislative dictate or by making it impossible to provide care by burying patients and providers both in a pile of confusion and red tape.
The crisis for Planned Parenthood is not just a political issue. It directly impacts some of the most at-risk people and populations in Colorado and across the nation. It’s a racial and economic justice issue, and our communities deserve better.
The bottom line is that people with abortion care appointments with individual providers should keep them. Those needing appointments should make them. And those who need procedural or practical support can reach out to the Cobalt Abortion Fund for help.
We don’t know what’s next. But we stand in solidarity with our colleagues at Planned Parenthood, and to anyone who comes to us in need of abortion care.
Don Aptekar is a retired ObGyn who served patients in Colorado for 50 years. Kara Alexandrovic is a practicing ObGyn in the Denver Metro area.
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