Colorado sees increased demand
Within an hour of news breaking that the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down Roe vs. Wade, the phones at the Boulder Valley Women’s Health Center started ringing.
Not just one or two calls, but at least a dozen — coming from states where patients had appointments scheduled, but had to cancel them and scramble to find alternatives after the ruling stripped away constitutional protections for abortion and allowed states with trigger bans to immediately outlaw the procedure.
The Boulder clinic only performs abortion procedures on Fridays and usually has same-day appointments open. Now, two weeks after the ruling, they’re scheduled at least a week out and staff is double-booking in case of cancellations. Dr. Kelly Peters, the clinic’s medical director, said she’s grateful to live in a supportive state like Colorado, but it’s important to keep talking about the need for abortion services and compassionate care.
“The only good thing that I see right now is that it is making people angry and it’s making people motivated to get out and do what they can,” she said of the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling. “We’ve had people show up at our door trying to give us donations and people calling and emailing about how can they help, what can they do?”
In the ruling’s wake, abortion providers across Colorado are seeing increased demand — and are coordinating to refer clients to each other in an effort to ensure people can be seen in a timely fashion, even if a particular clinic doesn’t have availability. They say they’ve been inundated with requests for abortion appointments and also are seeing an increase in appointments for birth control strategies such as vasectomies or intrauterine devices.
“A year ago, we rarely saw patients who needed to travel to Colorado for necessary medical care, whereas now up to a third of our patients are traveling from out of state — this means that each patient faces more anxiety and stress in navigating unfamiliar systems,” said Dr. Rebecca Cohen, a doctor at the University of Colorado Family Planning and OBGYN Clinic.
Health care providers have worried about overloading the state’s health care system, particularly after losing staff and resources during the pandemic, as Colorado stands as an abortion safe haven while other states immediately banned abortions or are expected to in the future. They also worry that, with fewer appointments available, women will be left to get abortions later in their pregnancies, creating more risk of hemorrhaging.
Cohen said she expects demand for abortion services in Colorado will only grow as more abortion care.
The Boulder Women’s Health Center just hired a nurse and a doctor, and is looking to expand the number of days it performs abortions, Peters said.
The work is taking a toll on doctors and medical staff across the state who say they are exhausted and trying to do what they can to meet the needs of their clients. Peters said she has a hard time sleeping, laying awake thinking about what’s happening to people in other states. Her personal life is suffering, too, she said, and though her family supports the work she’s doing, it also makes them nervous.
But Peters, like other medical professionals and support staff, is willing to make the sacrifices. Some of the medical assistants in particular who work at her clinic could probably get higherpaid jobs at other facilities, “but because they care about what we do, then they’re willing to work for a little less and work a little harder,” she said.
Reproductive rights organization Cobalt provides an abortion fund for patients who cannot afford the procedure (providers are paid directly) in the state, as well as to provide money and resources for people coming from out of state.
In 2021, the fund helped 34 clients and provided $6,000 for non-procedural support, such as travel reimbursement, gas cards, groceries and hotel rooms. Since Roe was overturned, the fund has provided $25,888 for 71 clients, according to Abortion Fund Director Amanda Carlson. states ban or restrict
She added that she’s worried people with more complex medical situations will have a harder time finding clinics that have availability for them, and for those that can’t, they will continue highrisk pregnancies that could be dangerous for them.
Dr. Emily Schneider, the Colorado section chair of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said clinics across the country are reporting increases in not only abortions, but miscarriage management, particularly from people in Texas. One woman came to Denver from Austin who was clearly having a miscarriage, Schneider said, but because there was a “flicker of a heartbeat,” doctors told her she couldn’t get treated in Texas because of the six-week ban.
Women have been driving from Texas and other states, sleeping in their cars, outside Colorado clinics, waiting for abortion appointment cancellations, Schneider said. Maternal-fetal medicine specialists also are seeing an increase in requests for appointments, and people are calling infertility clinics asking that embryos be transferred to Colorado, she added.
The hospital Schneider works at has been getting calls to the surgery unit asking for help with abortion appointments. She said she’s seen patients during annual exams ask if they have any medical conditions that would require hysterectomies because they want to just remove their uteruses so they don’t accidentally get pregnant.
After Texas implemented Senate Bill 8, the calls increased, with patients not being able to get in for appointments for two to three weeks in Schneider’s clinic. After the U.S. Supreme Court decision, that went up to three to four weeks.
A Denver police officer arrested an innocent man because he failed to fully investigate a drunk driving incident, causing the man to spend thousands of dollars on legal fees to fight the charge.
Officer Ryan Okken on June 14 received a 40-day suspension for his failure in that incident, according to disciplinary records obtained by The Denver Post through a public records request. But Okken won’t have to serve the suspension because he was fired that same day for a separate infraction: lying about his off-duty work.
The wrongful arrest happened when Okken saw a vehicle traveling more than 80 mph down Speer Boulevard at 12:49 a.m. on Sept. 27, 2020. He tried to stop the vehicle and found it stopped nearby after briefly losing sight of it. Okken said he saw the driver climb into the back seat of the stopped car, the disciplinary records show.
The man he believed to be the driver, who is not named in the disciplinary letter, smelled strongly of alcohol and slurred his speech. But the man and the two female passengers in the car all said the driver fled the vehicle after it was stopped.
The man did not have the keys to the car and the passengers showed Okken Polaroid photos from that night showing another man in the driver’s seat. But Okken didn’t believe the group and told them he knew they were lying, according to the disciplinary records.
Okken arrested the man after he refused to complete a roadside DUI test. Okken did not take any further steps to investigate the incident.
The man was charged with driving under the influence. He later had his charges dismissed because of a lack of evidence, but not before paying thousands of dollars in legal fees.
“I spent over $10,000 and lost countless hours of personal and work time trying to resolve Okken’s lies,” the man wrote in a complaint to Denver police, which is included in Okken’s disciplinary letter. “I have never even had a speeding ticket to my name, and have endured insurmountable hardships getting all of my life back to normal. His lies have ruined my faith in the Denver Police Department.”
Police later found a different man who had been driving the vehicle and determined he did flee the scene.
Mary Dulacki, chief deputy director of the Department of Safety, found that Okken’s actions and lack of investigation were unbecoming an officer because he jailed an innocent man after failing to conduct a thorough investigation.
“Though officers may appropriately question the credibility of suspects and witnesses, Officer Okken’s approach to the vehicle’s occupants reflected that he had made up his mind and that he would not consider any evidence contrary to his perception,” Dulacki wrote in the letter. “That approach was disrespectful and dismissive and substantially interfered with the department’s mission and professional image.”
Dulacki’s decision to fire Okken followed a year-long investigation into his offduty work for a variety of event venues and security companies. Internal affairs investigators found that Okken was paid by the city for time he did not work and that he on dozens of occasions underreported the number of hours he was working off-duty to flout the department’s limits about off-duty work. During that time, Okken missed several court appearances.
Okken joined the Denver Police Department in 2017. He was previously disciplined in 2019 for failing to find a gun on an arrestee after conducting a search.