Marchers gather at Riverside Park on June 26. 2022 in protest against Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Daniel Flanders photo
The League of Women Voters (LWV) has taken up the cause in Colorado of women’s reproductive health, beginning a petition process it calls “Coloradans for Protecting Reproductive Freedom”. The goal is to gather enough signatures to get the petition on the November 2024 ballot, to ensure women’s reproductive rights and women’s access to abortion in the Colorado Constitution.
Roe v. Wade was the settled law of the land for 50 years. Then in May, 2022, a leaked opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court indicated that the Supreme Court judges were ready to overturn the law, which they did in June, 2022. The decisions threw women’s health care into turmoil, with dozens of states run by old, far-right, white men passing laws to limit or outlaw abortion access, overruling doctors and women in decisions having to do with women’s own bodies, even pursuing women and criminally charging them for leaving states where their rights are now limited for reproductive health care out-of-state.
It’s draconian — and while Colorado is one of the states where abortion access has been protected — it has protection only because of state law — that protection is not in our state Constitution.
The statewide goal is to collect 185,000 signatures by March 2024 (to be assured of 124,238 qualified signatures), from across at least 37 of Colorado’s 64 counties for the petition to qualify for the state ballot. The state’s LWV is working with an organization known as Cobalt, to organize the communications and carefully collect the signatures.
The League of Women Voters of Chaffee County (LWVCC) is taking the lead across Chaffee County and has begun an effort that they hope will result in at least 2,000 petition signatures from across the county, to submit to the state petition effort.
Joining thousands of marchers and protesters nationwide, Jody Bol, Shelby Marion and Cindy Bucholz were at the Oct. 2 gathering at Alpine Park to support abortion rights. Tara Flanagan photo
“The idea is, this does more to protect women’s reproductive rights to their own bodies — adding it to the state’s constitution makes it harder to attack,” said LWVCC petition volunteer Carol Merovka, M.D. Merovka is handling the petition drive across the southern portion of the county, while LWVCC member Karen Dils is handling the petition drive for the northern half of the county.
Ark Valley Voice as news media attended a petition training session in which Merovka made a point of explaining that while the right to an abortion is protected in state law (outside the state Constitution) at the moment no state and local government employees have the right to the health procedure of abortion as a covered service, because the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and tossed the decision to the states.
“This doesn’t just codify it in the Colorado Constitution, it makes health insurance cover it — it allows for abortion as a covered health care service for state and local government employees,” explained Merovka. “Also people need to know that any woman on Medicaid is also not covered right now for abortion as reproductive healthcare.”
There will be a few LWVCC petition volunteers who are trained in the rules of gathering signatures who may be going door to door in your neighborhood. They are LWVCC members and they will be wearing nametags that identify them.
Anyone who wishes to sign must sign using the name that they are registered in as a registered voter. If you’re not sure what that is, go to VOTE.411.org and you can look up your voter registration. One clarification – men — you don’t have to be a woman to sign — you just have to believe that it’s a woman’s right to make her own health care decision.
For more information about the petition drive, contact Carol Merovka at cmerovka@gmail.com or by phone at 505-814-8537. In Salida, Dr. Alison Brown is one of three petition volunteers working with Merovka, and those hoping to sign the petition can contact her (Alison Brown <abrown@navsys.com> ) to set up a time to drop by her office to sign it.
Recent Comments