Supporters gather enough valid signatures to put measure – that would enshrine abortion rights into constitution – on to ballot

Voters in Colorado will have a say on abortion rights this fall after supporters collected enough valid signatures to put a measure on the ballot, part of a national push to pose abortion rights questions to voters since the US supreme court removed the nationwide right to abortion.

The Colorado measure officially made the ballot on Friday and would enshrine abortion rights into the constitution in a state which already allows abortion at all stages of pregnancy despite the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade.

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© Photograph: Jason Connolly/AFP/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Jason Connolly/AFP/Getty Images

My own traumatic experience shows why we must push back against those who try to chip away at our freedom of choice

As the criminal justice bill stumbles through parliament this week – beset by delays and controversies, and picking up amendments as it goes – another woman, Sophie Harvey, is on trial for an alleged illegal abortion, after taking pills to end her pregnancy when she was past the 24-week legal threshold. She was just 19 at the time. She faces a sentence of up to life in prison.

Anyone who cares about women’s rights should be alarmed not just by this trial, but by two new amendments to the bill put forward, targeting abortion in England and Wales. The first, from Caroline Ansell, a Conservative MP, aims to reduce the abortion limit to 22 weeks. The other, tabled by Liam Fox, another Conservative, would stop women’s choice over whether to abort a pregnancy where Down’s syndrome looks likely, up to birth. Currently, she can choose to do so for the entirety of her pregnancy, under ground E of the Abortion Act, which allows for termination if there is “substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped”.

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© Photograph: SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

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© Photograph: SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

The court’s ruling could extend to at least half a dozen other states that have similarly restrictive bans, and the implications of the case could stretch beyond abortion.

© Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

Some states with Republican-controlled legislatures want more data, while some controlled by Democrats want less, fearing it could be used to target patients or providers.

© Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

At a time of heightened confusion and legal battles over access to abortion, women are looking to social media for answers.

© Paola Chapdelaine for The New York Times

The state’s Supreme Court ruled that the 1864 law is enforceable today. Here is what led to its enactment.

© Rebecca Noble/Reuters