Colorado passed the nation’s first liberalized abortion law in 1967. It was considered almost radical at the time, but it seems quite conservative now.
Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision, went well beyond what Colorado did. If today’s more conservative court were to overturn Roe, would Colorado return to that old 1967 law?
Probably not, says Kevin Paul, an attorney who represents Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood. “Too much has happened since then.”
There probably would have to be new legislation – which raises interesting questions about partisan control of the legislature and governor’s office.
Politically, 1967 was a different time. Republicans as well as Democrats supported the new abortion law. In a legislature with a Republican majority, the bill passed 40-21 in the House and 20-13 in the Senate. And it was signed – on April 25, 1967 – by a Republican governor, the late John Love.
House Bill 1426 was introduced by then-Rep. Richard Lamm, a Denver Democrat who later served three terms as governor. It was carried in the Senate by John Bermingham, a Denver Republican who later became a Democrat.
“It was the first,” says Bermingham. “It beat California by 10 days.”
The 1967 law permitted a “justified medical termination” of a pregnancy if the mother’s mental or physical health was in danger of “serious permanent impairment,” or if there was a chance the baby would have “grave and permanent” physical deformity or mental retardation, or if the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest..
But it would have to be performed in an accredited hospital, with the unanimous approval of a three-doctor panel. A parent or guardian’s approval would be required if the rueful potential mother was a minor – or her husband’s approval, if she was married.
And that was considered a liberal law? “Sure,” says Lamm, “at the time. But I wouldn’t say that anymore.”
If legislators were to propose restrictions like this today, they’d be seen as hostile to a woman’s essential right to choose what happens inside her body.
The 1967 bill might have died in committee were in not for some legislative legerdemain. After the bill passed the House, its supporters worried what might happen in the Senate, Bermingham recalled.
The Senate’s presiding officer, Lt. Gov. Mark Hogan, was a Democrat and also a Roman Catholic. This was when the governor and lieutenant governor were elected separately, and sometimes from different political parties.
Supporters of the abortion bill thought Hogan might bury the legislation by assigning it to the Senate State Affairs Committee. State Affairs – then, as now, a place bills were sent to die – was chaired by Will Nicholson, a convert to the Catholic faith.
So Bermingham arranged instead for the bill to be introduced when Hogan was not in the chamber. Bermingham, who chaired the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, got word during a committee meeting that the time was ripe. He adjourned the committee and hurried to the Senate floor while President Pro Tem Fay DeBerard was in charge. The bill was dumped into the hopper and DeBerard, as was his due, assigned it to Bermingham’s committee.
The rest is history – including, most likely, the 1967 law.
After Roe, state courts invalidated much of what the law contained. In 1975, a federal district court overturned the state law’s parental permission requirement. In 1984, voters approved – by fewer than 10,000 votes – a constitutional amendment prohibiting public funding of abortions. In 2003, the legislature required that a parent or guardian be notified when a minor seeks an abortion. The 2003 law doesn’t require permission, however, and a court can bypass the notice requirement.
Lamm believes some Republicans don’t want to see Roe overturned because it would take away a major rallying point. “Where would the energy come from?” he asks. On the other hand, a reversal of Roe would energize the Democrats, he says. “There would be a great new vigor in the Democratic Party.”
Fred Brown, retired Capitol Bureau chief for The Denver Post, is also a political analyst for 9News.
