With the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in 2022, the US Supreme Court invited states to pass laws banning most or all abortions. In a dozen states, communities have used ballot initiatives to protect or restore the right to abortion as part of reproductive healthcare. This November, voters in 10 states will decide upon a range of abortion-related measures. In four states, ballot measures would restore the standards established in Roe v Wade, while one would allow restrictions after the first trimester. In four other states, where abortion is already legal, the measures would strengthen the right to abortion.
In Colorado, a proposed constitutional amendment would both enshrine the legal right to an abortion and remove a major barrier to exercising that right by allowing public funding for abortion services. With Amendment 79, Coloradans for Protecting Reproductive Freedom is going beyond the question of legality, moving the state closer to achieving reproductive justice.
Convergence Magazine Editorial Board member Sandra Hinson spoke with Dusti Gurule, co-chair of Coloradans for Protecting Reproductive Freedom and the CEO of Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights (COLOR) about Amendment 79, the organizing landscape in Colorado, and the role of Latine communities in advancing reproductive justice.
Sandra Hinson: What stands out for you about this moment? What does it suggest to you about organizing for reproductive justice today?
Dusti Gurule: In all my years of working on reproductive rights and justice, I never would have thought that elected officials at all levels would be talking about the importance of protecting access to abortion care. It’s fantastic to see, but it also shows us more opportunities to grow in strength and make connections across issues. It’s not just about abortion. It’s about the intersectionality, the comprehensive framework around justice issues.
This wave of initiatives in several states really shows the importance of community organizing, community voices, and local action.
SH: How did the coalition for Amendment 79 come together? And what role does COLOR play within the coalition?
DG: The core of groups fighting for reproductive rights in Colorado had worked together before the Dobbs decision. When Roe fell, it was “all hands on deck” both to defend against anti-abortion activists and to do something proactive to get the right to abortion care into the state constitution.
COLOR has been working for years to remove barriers to reproductive care for Latinas and people who can get pregnant. Our work has always been about protecting and expanding reproductive healthcare. The legality of abortion was the floor, not the ceiling. The Dobbs decision put a spotlight on the broader concerns about having access to reproductive care, which includes abortion.
To understand how we made the initiative about more than legality, we need to go back to 2020. COLOR and others were grappling with COVID and its disproportionate effects on communities of color, on immigrants, African Americans, and Latinos, revealing the institutional racism that is baked into so many of our systems. This work was part of a more considerable upsurge in movement organizing, not just in Colorado but throughout the country, to get COVID care and relief, to support the Movement for Black Lives, to elevate more community leaders into elected office, and to defeat right-wing candidates and initiatives up and down the ballot.
In a pre-Dobbs maneuver, a group of nationally supported anti-abortion forces were able to get a test case on the state ballot in 2020. Prop 115 would have banned abortions after 22 weeks. With our history of organizing in Latina communities for reproductive health services and our work to get COVID care, COLOR was able to do effective voter persuasion against Prop 115. Because of our success in 2020, we were able to mobilize quickly in 2022 to prevent anti-abortion forces from putting forward another ballot initiative that would have banned all abortion services.
We’ve had abortion bans on state ballots before. In 2014, we mobilized to defeat a “personhood” amendment. This gave COLOR the impetus to launch a 501(c)(4) entity: the COLOR Action Committee. So, in 2020, we had the political entity we could utilize to defeat Prop 115.
Our communities deserve better than constantly being on the defensive. COLOR Action Fund was eager to get something proactive on the 2024 ballot. We joined with several other groups to form Coloradans for Protecting Reproductive Freedom. I became co-chair with Karen Middleton from Cobalt Advocates. We have fantastic staff and leaders who have worked hard these past two years to reach out to various groups and elected officials to get support for Amendment 79.
COLOR and COLOR Action Fund are consistent voices for reproductive rights, health, and justice within the coalition. We insisted that the amendment should address both the legal right to abortion and the barriers that make it hard for so many women, especially women of color, to take advantage of their legal rights. We remind other players that it is not just about abortion and that we can’t have a single approach to systems change. And we have to bring the community along with us.
SH: The list of endorsements for Amendment 79 is impressive!
DG: Having organizations like SEIU, the Colorado Nurses Association, and faith-based groups with us has been excellent. These endorsements reflect the coalition’s intention to expand beyond the core of reproductive rights groups and include other voices: labor, interfaith, youth, immigrants, Latine communities, students, and more. In 2020, our coalition to defeat Prop 115 didn’t have this level of support from labor, faith-based organizations, and other non-profits. We’re bringing people together through conversations about access to abortion as a justice issue that intersects with all the other issues these groups care about.
COLOR Action Fund is running an expansive persuasion campaign to pass Amendment 79. We are trusted messengers in our community, and we know the nuances and realities our communities face. We push back against the myth that Latine voters tend to be anti-choice, especially if they are Catholic. Our research shows this is not necessarily true. When we talk about reproductive justice as part of self-determination, having a voice, and having access to healthcare resources without fear of discrimination or criminalization, a lot of folks who are faith-aware are with us.
Our communities also know that we will fight for them. In 2021, we were able to win a reproductive health care program that provides family planning services regardless of immigration status, which is enormous because immigration status has been a significant barrier to accessing care here in Colorado.
SH: You mentioned the role of faith in your organizing around reproductive justice. How do you use faith to connect reproductive rights with faith-based concerns for social justice?
DG: Many folks in our communities have a faith-aware background, and we thought it was time for us to embrace that and be intentional about it. We now have a faith-aware organizer, a brilliant young person working on their PhD. They have helped us think through how to apply liberatory theology to make nuanced connections using spirituality and religion as an entry point to the conversation around social justice issues and reproductive justice.
For years, we have been connecting with different faith centers and churches that provide care for migrants, and that has been one of our entry points. We’ve also created a toolkit to help people use this to talk about reproductive justice and abortion. These conversations using a liberatory justice framework have broadened our reach. We are showing that Latinos with faith belief systems can support people’s ability to make decisions about their families and reproductive health.
As I mentioned, our coalition includes an organization that does faith-based organizing. We launched an event at a Unitarian church with many different faiths involved. From this, we captured visuals with our “Abortion Access for All” signs alongside the church’s pulpit.
For me, it’s been very enlightening because I come from a social justice background, and for a long time, I pushed away notions around the church because of colonialism and the harm that it did to so many of our ancestors. But I think this is a new way to understand faith and to show that Latinos of faith, including Catholics, are not a monolith. We have young people of faith. We have multiple generations. We have mixed families. This is another way for us to unite our community to become the decision-makers, change the systems, and get different people running for office through our political entity, COLOR Action Fund.
SH: I’d like to hear more about the coalition’s messaging campaigns given that the amendment covers both the legal question and the public funding question. Are different parts of the coalition messaging more on one aspect than the other? How do you navigate these differences?
DG: Your question reminds me of our conversations with the editorial board of the Denver Post, one of the last prominent publications in Colorado. They just endorsed Amendment 79. Our deliberate and precise text helped us win this endorsement.
Our coalition, including national and state-based organizations, worked hard toward clear and straightforward language. And finding the exact wording was a struggle. Many of these groups at the state and national levels wanted an amendment that focused more on protecting the right to abortion in the state constitution. COLOR held the line that legal access is not enough. We need a policy that addresses a significant barrier for our community members, many of whom are on Medicaid, work for the state, or are covered by other types of state insurance. The right to abortion care shouldn’t be just available to some. This was our line in the sand for COLOR and COLOR Action Fund. Reproductive justice is about everyone’s ability to get the care they need and live the lives they want to live.
Within the campaign, COLOR Action Fund leads the voice of the Latine community, which means we navigate those conversations around care and expanding care, building upon the conversations we had in 2020 around COVID care and ensuring that everyone in our community, regardless of documentation status, has access to the care that they need.
The ballot measure will do precisely what it says. Once we pass Amendment 79, the fight for access will continue. Because of a Taxpayers Bill of Rights passed in the 1990s, we will deal with legislative attempts to cut all social safety net spending programs in the coming years. And we still have to deal with the reality of the Hyde Amendment, passed back in 1976 by Congress, to prohibit the use of federal funds for abortion services.
SH: What does your voter engagement work look like? What are the hopes and expectations about how this amendment will help drive turnout?
DG: Amendment 79 is very tangible and part of our efforts to ramp up participation in our democracy this election. We can talk with friends and family about how it will impact them. On the c3 side, we are doing voter education work with Latinos throughout our state.
COLOR Action Fund utilizes our key endorsements to help drive turnout in local and congressional elections. This effort, coupled with our education and persuasion around Amendment 79, is part of our commitment to ensuring our community’s voices are heard on November 5th.
Colorado’s statewide ballot contains thirteen measures. COLOR Action Fund partnered with the Working Families Party to create a racial justice ballot guide. It lists all the propositions and amendments along with positions on each measure. We are pushing it out digitally, targeting specific areas in the state, and using it in our canvassing and phone banking efforts.
We are partnering with Voces Unidas Action Fund on the Western slope to help expand our persuasion campaign to reach as many Latinos in our state as possible. They have produced commercials and radio ads. We are helping to send mailers, ads, and guides and using trusted candidates to help drive turnout.
Our communities are excited to vote in this election. I’ve seen it with the young people that we work with. From our polling over the summer, we know our communities will be with us on Amendment 79, and we know they are excited to vote up and down the ticket.
We look forward to a big celebration after November 5. Then, we will get back to work, fighting for the funding we need, working with our state legislators and agencies to hold them accountable, and addressing the budget challenges and funding issues. We will continue to build community power and a pipeline of leaders for the future.
Featured image courtesy of COLOR.