—
A Denver judge has allowed a lawsuit seeking to eliminate Colorado’s parental notification requirement for minors seeking abortions to proceed, leaving intact for now one of the state’s few remaining protections for parents and their daughters.
Denver District Court Judge Ian Kellogg ruled August 17 that Rebecca Cohen, a Denver abortionist, may continue her claim that the Parental Notification Act violates Amendment 79 of the Colorado Constitution creating a fake abortion right.
Kellogg rejected the state’s effort to dismiss that claim. He did not strike down the law or decide that it is unconstitutional.
Amendment 79, approved by voters in 2024, established a so-called constitutional right to abortion and prohibits state and local governments from denying, impeding or discriminating against its exercise. Colorado already allows abortion at any stage of pregnancy up to birth.
REACH PRO-LIFE PEOPLE WORLDWIDE! Advertise with LifeNews to reach hundreds of thousands of pro-life readers every week. Contact us today.
Parental notification is among the few remaining limits involving minors. The Parental Notification Act requires that a parent or guardian receive written notice at least 48 hours before an abortion is performed on an unemancipated minor. The law includes exceptions for abuse, neglect and medical emergencies, and it allows a minor to ask a judge to waive the notice requirement.
Those rules remain in effect while the case proceeds.
Cohen sued Gov. Jared Polis, the Colorado Medical Board and the state of Colorado. In a news release issued when the lawsuit was filed, Cohen said Colorado’s Parental Notice Requirement “intrudes on young people’s privacy, and in some cases risks their health and safety.”
Sharma, co-director of litigation at the Lawyering Project, which represents Cohen, called the court ruling a “victory.”
Kellogg stressed that the ruling only lets the challenge go forward.
“To be clear,” he wrote, “the Court is not deciding that the requirements imposed by the [Parental Notification Act] do, as a matter of law, rise to the level of unconstitutional discrimination.”
The judge pointed to a separate Colorado law that allows a pregnant minor to authorize prenatal, delivery and post-delivery care without parental notification or consent. Cohen’s remaining claim argues that requiring notice only when a minor seeks an abortion treats her differently from a minor who continues the pregnancy. Of course the major difference is that abortion involves killing a baby.
Catholic leaders warned before the 2024 vote that Amendment 79 would entrench abortion throughout pregnancy and strip away parental safeguards.
Then-Denver Archbishop Samuel Aquila urged opposition, saying the measure would prevent parents from knowing if their adolescent daughter obtained an abortion.
“There is no age restriction on abortion in Colorado, and [Amendment] 79 would prevent parents from being informed if their 15-year-old daughter has an abortion,” Aquila wrote. “Parents must have the right to know if their adolescent daughter is being pressured into getting an abortion by their boyfriend or someone in authority such as their coach, teacher, school nurse or counselor.”
The notification law remains in force.
