Gov. Jared Polis announced Wednesday he has signed an executive order intending to protect the data of those who seek abortions in Colorado.

The order – D 2022 032 – directs state agencies to withhold data, including patient medical records and related billing information, to states that may impose criminal or civil penalties on those who seek or provide abortions. 

“We are taking needed action to protect and defend individual freedom and protect the privacy of Coloradans. This important step will ensure that Colorado’s thriving economy and workforce are not impacted based on personal health decisions that are wrongly being criminalized in other states,” Polis said in a statement.

Polis’ order says he “will exercise the full extent of my discretion to decline requests for the arrest, surrender, or extradition of any person charged with a criminal violation of a law of another state where the violation alleged involves the provision of, assistance with, securing of, or receipt of reproductive health care, unless the acts forming the basis of the prosecution of the crime charged would also constitute a criminal offense under Colorado law.”

The executive order also provides protection from civil or criminal judgments against the professional licenses of those who provide or assist in reproductive health care to patients who travel from other states.

The move by Polis appears to be part of an orchestrated preemptive strike by governors in other states where abortion remains legal following the court’s decision to overturn longstanding precedent guaranteeing access to abortion, thereby leaving it to the states to decide the parameters of their abortion statutes.

Jackson’s Women’s Health, the Mississippi clinic in the case that resulted in Roe being overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 24, closed its doors today. 

In North Carolina, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper signed an executive order also on Wednesday to protect abortion providers and patients from extradition to states that have banned the practice. Abortions are legal in North Carolina until fetal viability or in certain medical emergencies, making the state an outlier in the Southeast.

“This order will help protect North Carolina doctors and nurses and their patients from cruel right-wing criminal laws passed by other states,” Cooper said in announcing the order.

The governors of Rhode Island and Maine signed executive orders late Tuesday, stating they will not cooperate with other states’ investigations into people who seek abortions or health care providers that perform them.

Rhode Island Democratic Gov. Dan McKee said women should be trusted with their own health care decisions, and Democratic Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos said Rhode Island must do all it can to protect access to reproductive health care as “other states attack the fundamental right to choose.”

Maine Democratic Gov. Janet Mills said she will “stand in the way of any effort to undermine, rollback, or outright eliminate the right to safe and legal abortion in Maine.”

Polis’ action was immediately cheered by abortion-rights supporters, including Democratic state lawmakers who sponsored the Reproductive Health Equity Act during the 2022 session. The new law is among the most permissive in the country. Passed in March following a record 23-hour debate, it affirmed in state law the right to choose an abortion or carry a pregnancy to term. Fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses do not have independent rights under the law, and it prohibits state and local public entities from denying or restricting a person’s right to use or refuse contraception, or to either continue a pregnancy or have an abortion.

Abortion-rights advocates pushed the measure before a draft U.S. Supreme Court opinion showing that five Republican-appointed justices were poised to overturn Roe was leaked to POLITICO, arguing it would serve as a bulwark against any decision by the conservative court. Anti-abortion activists said they plan to sue over the new Colorado law, arguing it is overly broad and raises “serious questions” about the conscience rights of doctors, nurses and first responders.

“I sponsored the Reproductive Health Equity Act to codify reproductive rights into Colorado law because the government should never interfere in a patient’s private medical decision,” said Majority Leader Daneya Esgar, D-Pueblo, in a statement Wednesday. “Governor Polis’ action today will protect patients and providers from actions taken by Republican state legislatures to criminalize abortion, force rape victims and children to give birth, and prosecute patients who travel out of their states to access an abortion. With more people traveling to our state to get the care they need, Colorado is taking a stand to protect patients’ rights and their private medical information.”

Rep. Kyle Mullica, D-Thornton, an emergency room nurse, added, “We now live in a terrifying reality where abortion patients in Colorado and the providers who care for them could be arrested in states where Republican legislatures have banned abortion.”

Mullica noted he served on the House Health and Insurance Committee where, earlier this year, “every Republican lawmaker on the committee voted to ban abortion without exception and force rape victims and children to give birth.”

He added: “I’m proud that our governor is taking additional action today to protect providers’ licenses and patients’ privacy, and I’ll continue fighting bills from Republican lawmakers to ban abortion in Colorado.”

Jeff Hunt, director of the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University and one of the most prominent evangelical voices on the state’s political scene, earlier said the “pro-life community is committed to ending abortion in Colorado.”

“As Colorado becomes a tourist destination for people across the country seeking abortions and Coloradans see an increase in abortion activities in this state, I believe they change their mind as to if they want Colorado to be known as allowing unrestricted abortions of viable children,” he told Colorado Politics a few weeks ago.

Hunt also said Colorado’s new abortion law is flawed, arguing that it “specifically denies legal rights to a class of citizens,” that it “seems to place significant restrictions on local control” and that it “raises serious questions regarding conscience rights for doctors, nurses, first responders.” 

Christina Soliz, political director of COLOR, the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights, also praised Polis’ order, saying it “means that Colorado will not cooperate with any criminalization attempt for a right that is protected under law in our state. We’re keeping our promise to go beyond the Reproductive Health Equity Act and expand access and protections for all — regardless of who you are and where you come from.”

However, it’s unknown whether Colorado and the other states are on firm legal ground is issuing the executive orders.

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