DENVER (LifeSiteNews) — Buoyed by rare bipartisan support, Colorado is on the verge of enacting a measure to prohibit the forced sterilization of mentally disabled individual.
House Bill 26-1040 would repeal language in state law detailing the previous process by which someone “with an intellectual and developmental disability over 18 years of age” can give “informed consent” to “be sterilized.”
The language is replaced with a stronger declaration that such a person “who has decision-making capacity shall not be sterilized in the absence of the person’s informed consent” except in certain circumstances defined elsewhere in state law that “pose an imminent threat to the life or health of the person and in accordance with processes in existing law that allow another person with legal authority to make medical decisions for the person to consent on the person’s behalf,” according to the legislative summary.
The bill, which passed the state Senate unanimously and the state House 61-2, now goes to Democrat Gov. Jared Polis for a final signature to become law.
“We’re finally, not only in practice, but also in law, taking that next step to close the door on the eugenics era for people with disabilities,” said Jack Johnson, public policy liaison for Disability Law Colorado. “Educational rights, their rights in the justice system, their rights to housing, their rights to employment. It also includes their individual autonomy rights, for example, their rights to have them make medical decisions.”
Thirty-one states, including Colorado, currently permit forced sterilizations, a grim artifact of the eugenics movement of the early 20th century.
Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger spoke positively about forced sterilization, including endorsing the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1927 Buck v. Bell ruling that upheld the practice. “I admire the courage of a government that takes a stand on sterilization of the unfit,” Sanger wrote, so long as “unfit” refers to “physical or mental defects of a human being.”
Planned Parenthood has long since disavowed Sanger’s support for eugenics but remains as committed as ever to abortion-on-demand, reflecting the inconsistency Colorado displays with HB 26-1040.
Even as the state nears the abolition of forced sterilization, it protects legal abortion through all nine months through a constitutional amendment enacted in 2024, which enabled a new “‘all-trimesters” abortion center to open last year. Earlier this year, Colorado was forced to pay $5.4 million to a pro-life medical clinic targeted by the state for offering abortion pill reversal, and the state is currently under federal investigation for allegedly coercing health providers into covering abortions.