Shortly after Gov. Jared Polis signed an executive order Wednesday barring state officials from assisting other states in criminal and civil investigations of women who travel there to get abortions, Colorado Secretary of State Jenna Griswold confirmed that her office “shall not extradite anyone for a criminal violation of the laws of another country.”
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month, leaving abortion law up to the states, Republican-led legislatures in states like Arkansas and Texas have begun considering passing measures that make it a crime for women to obtain the procedure in other states.
For Griswold, a Democrat, that would be a clear overreach of government power, as she expressed in a Twitter thread Wednesday.
“Every American should have the right to choose with whom to start a family, if and when to start a family, and how many children to have,” she wrote. “Pregnancy is never something that should be forced on women by the government.”
However, the court’s ruling has already prompted nine Republican-led states to ban abortions, and more restrictions are on the horizon. Meanwhile, many Democratic-led states are seeking to strengthen protections for women seeking abortions and the medical professionals who provide them. The new mixed reality promises that legal battles over abortion will continue to play out for years to come.
In a conference call with Democratic governors last week, President Biden warned that “people will be shocked when the first state … tries to arrest a woman for crossing a state line to get health care.”
Colorado Secretary of State Jenna Griswold speaks at a news conference in Denver in February. (Hyoung Chang/MediaNews Group/Denver Post via Getty Images)
The looming opposition to extradition has its roots in the US Constitution. Article IV, Section II, Clause 2 reads: “A person charged in any State with treason, a felony, or any other crime, who is a fugitive from justice and is found in another State, shall, on the application of the executive of the State from which he fugitive, to be extradited to be transferred to the state having jurisdiction of the crime.”
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The tricky part comes when a crime in one state is legal in another. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, for example, required Southern slaves who escaped to the North, where slavery was outlawed, to be returned upon capture. The passage of this act against the strong objections of abolitionists was one of the factors that ultimately led to the outbreak of the Civil War.
Griswold’s comments Wednesday made it clear that the secretaries of state, already on the front lines of monitoring state elections, will play a central role in the looming battle for women who travel out of state to get abortions.
“The Secretary of State’s office plays a unique role in extraditions in Colorado,” Griswold wrote Wednesday. “This documentation must include the state seal, and the secretary of state has the legal authority to affix the seal to documents such as this.”
Yahoo News spoke with Griswold about the legal quagmire the Supreme Court’s decision unleashed. The interview has been edited for clarity.
Yahoo News: Do you expect a large influx of women traveling to Colorado to get abortions?
Griswold: We believe so. There has already been an increase from the western states of women who want to make decisions about their future and their bodies coming to Colorado. And frankly, we’re going to see women who can afford to do that travel from across the country to the states that still treat women as full human beings, as full citizens.
But I believe we will also see an increase in female deaths. I don’t know if you saw the Ohio case over the weekend where a 10-year-old child who was raped was unable to access reproductive health services. The idea that you’re going to allow a 10-year-old child who’s been raped, who may be a victim of incest, and force him to carry a child when he’s a child, I think says everything you need to know about the policies being passed through United States. It’s about controlling women. This is about demeaning us as non-citizens. Frankly, these extreme lawmakers and Supreme Court justices will have blood on their hands from the extreme policies that are passed across the country.
Is the state taking steps to prepare for this?
Colorado State is the last [legislative] session passed legislation protecting birth control rights and abortion care. This was done on the eve of what many of us believed was coming from the Supreme Court. I think the actions that the governor just took — and I joined him to make sure that we look at the policies and not help the states implement some of these incredible laws — are important to take. The Secretary of State’s office is the custodian of the state seal—extraditions are signed by the governor of Colorado, and then I have to affix the state seal and sign. So it’s really important for me to act because I’m only the 10th woman ever elected to public office in the state of Colorado, and I care a lot about how women are treated in this country. And I will not allow my office to participate in the criminalization of abortion patients or providers in Colorado or any other state.
Colorado Governor Jared Polis delivers his 2022 State of the State address at the Capitol in January. (Aaron Ontiveroz/MediaNews Group/Denver Post via Getty Images)
How unusual is it for a country to flatly refuse to participate in extradition proceedings due to conflicting laws?
We see many countries acting this way, refusing to extradite women who need to travel or doctors based on laws that limit Americans’ basic freedoms.
In your statement on Twitter, you said you would not participate in extradition proceedings brought by other countries on abortion-related issues. Do you expect this to trigger a legal challenge?
I think whether there is a legal challenge or not, we will stand firmly with women and with abortion providers across the country. I am proud that Colorado will continue to protect Americans’ freedoms, make decisions about our bodies and health care without interference from government officials, and that our state will remain a safe place for Americans who need access to this truly critical, life-saving care.
Given that the extradition clause is part of the US constitution and that conservatives now control the Supreme Court, are you worried about how a legal challenge might play out?
I have every confidence in our attorney general, in our ability to uphold our decisions about fundamental freedoms. Make no mistake, this is a broader assault on our basic freedoms – including the right to vote, privacy [and] to love freely – all to impose the extremist view of the few on the majority. Whether it’s the politicians who put these extreme justices on the Supreme Court and made overturning Roe possible, to the general assault on democracy and the voters’ power to fight back at the ballot box, there is a coordinated effort to roll back American freedoms.
I think there are a lot of problems with the Supreme Court, whether it’s justice [Clarence] Thomas’ apparent conflict of interest in having his wife involved in the riot and failing to recuse herself – which is an impeachable offense by the way – to the fact that judges are unwilling to stand by their word in confirmation hearings in terms of precedent. I think it is time for good hearted people and those who believe in freedom to stand up for each other. A majority of Americans support access to abortion care. The majority of Americans want free and fair elections.
In practical terms, let’s say a woman from Texas travels to Colorado to have an abortion. If Texas passes a law to make it illegal for women to travel to undergo this procedure, how will Texas government officials gain access to the knowledge that an abortion has been performed?
Someone close to the person saying them. Texas has criminalized abortion care so far — or so it was thought — that they wanted cab drivers to report it to the government. So of course there are different ways to discover different information. HIPAA does not cover something like an employer knowing if an employee is traveling. It’s a slippery slope into a country that people won’t recognize, and we can never let a legal challenge scare us from taking action, because the other side certainly isn’t.
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