From Washington, D.C., to the statehouse to their communities, Colorado adolescents and young adults are making their views known on both sides of the abortion debate.

They’re marching at rallies, waving signs and protesting, joining issue groups, speaking and writing letters to legislators, taking to social media platforms, donating to causes that support their beliefs and talking with their peers about the topic.

From participating in the annual “March for Life” at the U.S. Capitol on Friday, to attending Monday’s launch of potential new ballot proposals that would change Colorado’s constitution to further guarantee abortion rights and allow for public funds to pay for abortion procedures, to using social media to stimulate action as one Colorado Springs teen is doing, youths are rising up.

“It’s a very hard subject to talk about, but it’s very important that we do that because it’s the lives of our future we’re talking about,” said 18-year-old MaryCatherine Ganis of Colorado Springs, who has been attending anti-abortion events with her family since she was a child.

“It’s important to talk with love and understanding and not with hate toward one another and to understand other people’s situations and also understand that life is precious,” she said.

Ganis went to the anti-abortion march in Washington, D.C., last January with her mom and about 30 other people from the Respect Life Apostolate for the Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs. She said she returned home invigorated and motivated to do more.

“I brought back a lot of awareness; my eyes were opened and it made me want to help people understand that a child in the womb isn’t just an extension of themselves but a person in themselves and a whole other life to be lived,” Ganis said. “I want to work toward helping people understand life is not an accident.”

For abortion-rights young adults, “bodily autonomy, freedom and fairness” are at the forefront of their advocacy, said Nicole Hensel, executive director of New Era Colorado, a “nonpartisan nonprofit that harnesses young people’s political power” on various matters.

“Young people are not that jazzed about the top races in 2024; they’re turning toward issues and ballot measures,” she said, mentioning that she herself is in the young-adult age bracket.

In the year and a half since the federal abortion law reverted to individual state control, it’s become a defining issue in either camp.

“When Roe v. Wade was overturned there was a huge momentum of youth activism because young people hadn’t ever lived in a world where abortion wasn’t legal and their bodily autonomy wasn’t protected,” Hensel said.

Abortion and housing are the top subjects that young Coloradans, which New Era defines as ages 18 to 33, identify in surveys as their most pressing concerns, she said.

And Colorado had 1.3 million registered voters under age 35 in the 2022 mid-term election, according to logs. That’s 1 in 3 adult voters.

“We gain strength in numbers,” Hensel said. “When we turn out, the true power of youth organizing shows.”

New Era is one of seven organizations of a coalition that on Monday, the 51st anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, will launch a push to get two initiatives on the Nov. 5 election ballot that would amend the Colorado Constitution to add the right to abortion and also reverse a 40-year-old constitutional ban prohibiting state tax dollars from being used to pay for abortions.

If proponents collect more than 124,200 valid signatures from across the state and voters approve the measures, abortion services would be covered by health insurance plans for state and local government employees and Colorado’s existing wide protections in state statute for abortion throughout pregnancy would be further codified.

Conversely, efforts to also place Protections for a Living Child initiative on this year’s ballot also have been in the planning stages. The initiative would define “living human child” as a human being from conception, prohibit abortion, provide for law enforcement and penalties for individuals and facilities that perform abortions or provide surgical tools or medications to perform abortions. 

Constitutional amendments in Colorado require a 55% supermajority of votes to pass.

Colorado is one of few states in the country that has no limits on when an abortion can be performed during a pregnancy. As such, Colorado has seen an influx in recent years of women from states that have enacted abortion restrictions seeking abortions here.

It’s clear that removing federal protection for abortion has become “a direct threat to young people’s values and bodily autonomy,” Hensel said. And autonomy in general is of utmost importance to her generation, she said.

“People don’t want the government to interfere in their personal choices,” Hensel said. “That’s why we’ve seen Colorado stand up for abortion rights.”

Hensel attributes historic voter turnout in the 2022 midterms as being “fueled by young people wanting to resist this and make their voices heard.”

Monday’s rally on the west side of the Capitol in Denver starts at noon and is open to all, she said. Signatures will be collected in the effort to get the proposals on the ballot.

Ganis’ anti-abortion stance solidified after a niece was born prematurely during a difficult birth.

“Being able to hold her” reinforced her convictions, she said. “She was so small, and three years later she’s so joyful and loves everyone.”

It’s important for teens to be involved in such a heated topic because “growing up in a hookup culture, people are being told so many things about how we’re able to solve the situation (of an unplanned pregnancy),” she said. “But abortion is not a solution.”

To present her views and those of like-minded peers, a 15-year-old Colorado Springs teen who opposes abortion, Tikvah “Tiki” Bridget Koppish, has launched a blog, Heartbeat: Teens4Life.

Koppish calls abortion “one of the most important movements of the 21st century.” Conservative activism is tough for teens who don’t support abortion, she said, and her website “strives to alert teens about abortion conditions and give them an activist platform to get their voices heard.”

Her website says it was “created by a teen, for teens.”

“We have an opinion. And it is just as valid as anyone’s,” Koppish writes.