The Colorado governor has signed a bill to protect access to abortion

House Bill 1279, the Reproductive Health Equity Act, states that “everyone has the fundamental right to make decisions about reproductive health care, including the fundamental right to use or refuse contraception; A pregnant person has a fundamental right to continue the pregnancy and to give birth or to have an abortion and to decide how to exercise that right; And a fertilized egg, embryo or embryo has no independent or derivative rights under state law. “

The police signature follows a flurry of recent abortion laws enacted by Republican state legislatures across the country.

The bill, passed by party-line votes in the state’s Democratic-majority House and Senate last month, also prohibits local companies from enforcing their own restrictions.

“In the state of Colorado, the critical decision to begin or end a pregnancy through medical assistance rests with the individual, their doctor and their trust,” the police said in a statement Monday.

The governor emphasized that the new law “does not change the current legal framework,” saying: “This bill simply maintains this status at the federal level and preserves all existing constitutional rights and obligations.”

The U.S. Supreme Court appears ready to uphold a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks. The fate of Rowe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision of 1973 that legalized abortion across the country, is still in balance, and anti-abortion activists are hopeful that the court’s conservative majority will overturn it.