Provider and Patient Protection

Planned Parenthood Votes Colorado believes providers and users of reproductive health care services must be protected from unlawful violence, intimidation, and harassment by those who disagree with the provision of such services. PPVC believes that the laws protecting women and providers from violence and intimidation are critical to preserving the right to choose and ensuring that reproductive health care centers, including those of Planned Parenthood, remain operable. Colorado was the first state to legally protect access to health care centers with the 1993 “Bubble Law,” designed specifically to protect clients from protestors’ abuse upon entering a reproductive health care center. It mandates that anyone within 100 feet of the entrance of any health center must maintain a physical distance of at least eight feet from those entering the health center. Colorado’s Bubble Law was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 and was not overturned by the Supreme Court in a recent decision on a free speech case (June 2014, McCullen v. Coakley) overturning a Massachusetts law which created a 35-foot buffer around abortion clinics. In 1994, President Clinton signed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrance (FACE) Act, making property destruction, obstruction and other means of intimidation outside of health centers carry civil and criminal penalties.