Recent reporting and firsthand investigation are raising serious concerns about how abortion services are being promoted and delivered—particularly involving minors. Two developments stand out: the encouragement of teenagers as young as 14 to participate in abortion support roles, and the increasing availability of abortion pills with limited, if any, medical oversight.
A report from Fox News describes a training hosted by a youth abortion advocacy group that explicitly invited participants ages 14–24 to learn how to become “abortion doulas,” equipping teens to support both procedural and medication abortions.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/group-hosts-abortion-doula-trainings-teach-teens-young-14-support-abortions-train-others
While abortion doulas are defined as non-medical support persons, extending this role to minors raises serious ethical concerns. Adolescents are still developing emotionally and cognitively. Encouraging their involvement in medically and emotionally complex situations risks exposes them to experiences they are not equipped to process, while blurring the boundaries between peer support and medical care.
Notably, even within abortion advocacy spaces, there is an implicit acknowledgment that medication abortion is not a trivial or casual experience. Training materials and support models emphasize the need for continuous emotional, physical, and psychological assistance. This framing itself contradicts the common public narrative that abortion pills are “simple” or comparable to routine medications. If significant support is necessary, it underscores that the experience can involve pain, distress, and medically relevant symptoms that require monitoring.
At the same time, access to abortion pills has expanded rapidly through online and mail-order systems. A report from Live Action highlights efforts to recruit “abortion pill doulas,” further normalizing peer-based involvement in abortion support.
In an undercover investigation, Christina Francis, MD, demonstrates how easily abortion pills can be obtained online, even by a 13 year old with multiple health conditions that would place her at significant risk. The process, as shown, raises concerns about the consistency of safeguards such as physician involvement, thorough medical screening, and meaningful oversight. For minors, this approach creates a pathway where abortion medication can be obtained with little to no direct physician interaction and without the kinds of safeguards—such as parental involvement or comprehensive screening—that are typically expected in adolescent medical care.
https://youtu.be/Nkqqfrgg6C0?si=W0HPIftuaLtnOFn1
This model also raises difficult legal and ethical questions. In many jurisdictions, pregnancy in a young adolescent may trigger statutory rape considerations depending on age differences. Systems that allow minors to obtain abortion medication without adult involvement may inadvertently reduce opportunities for identifying coercion, abuse, or exploitation. Rather than protecting vulnerable individuals, such pathways risk shielding those responsible for harm.
At the same time, the growing reliance on peer-based support—particularly involving minors—introduces additional concerns. Placing a 14-year-old in a position of supporting another individual through a medically and emotionally intense process may expose both individuals to psychological strain. Adolescents are already a population with increased vulnerability to anxiety, depression, and suicidality. Asking them to “hold” complex, and sometimes traumatic, experiences—potentially in secrecy—raises questions about the risk of adverse childhood experiences and long-term emotional impact.
There are also practical safety considerations. Medication abortion is often described as safe and effective, but it is not without side effects. Commonly reported symptoms include significant pain, nausea, vomiting, and heavy bleeding. In some cases, complications such as incomplete abortion or hemorrhage require follow-up care. These realities reinforce that this is not a passive or negligible experience, and they raise concerns about relying on untrained individuals—especially minors—to monitor or respond to potential warning signs.
Additionally, basic occupational safety considerations cannot be ignored. Exposure to blood and bodily fluids typically warrants protective measures under standards such as those outlined by Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Informal, peer-based support structures operating outside clinical environments may not consistently incorporate such protections, creating avoidable risks, such as exposure to hepatitis or HIV.
Taken together, these trends point to a concerning shift. Expanding access, when there is often no medical oversight, places adolescents in situations where medical risks may go unrecognized and emotional impacts are left unsupported. In most areas of medicine, minors are afforded additional safeguards. Here, they appear to be given fewer.
At minimum, these developments warrant serious scrutiny. When safeguards have been reduced in the name of access, the burden of risk does not disappear—it shifts onto those least equipped to bear it.
The American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) Colorado chapter, along with a coalition of pro-life organizations are highlighting the risks of unregulated late abortion to the health and safety of women. Regular events will be held as part of a statewide effort from concerned citizens, medical professionals and businesses to raise awareness and apply pressure on Colorado facilities that perform late abortions
Wednesday, Februray 25 from 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM | 1421 South Patomac St., Aurora, CO 80012
AAPLOG CO is the first in the nation state chapter of the American Association of Pro-Life OB/GYNS. Our foundation is based on the fact that all human beings deserve optimal healthcare at every stage of their life, starting at fertilization.
Our mission is to equip pro-life medical professionals in our state with the tools they need to provide evidence-based/scientifically sound information:
May 2026
How do you measure impact in a state where a 2025 bill mandating taxpayer funding for elective abortion explicitly argued that Colorado would save money by “averted births”? What does success look like when the cultural and legislative landscape seems diametrically opposed to life?
In Colorado, success looks like courageous medical professionals speaking truth with compassion, communities becoming informed, and collaborative efforts growing stronger every day. These are exciting and pivotal times for life-affirming medicine in our state, as new opportunities abound to present evidence-based care that defends both mother and child, and to advance medical care that honors the value of both of our patients. The medical voice remains one of the most trusted in society, and AAPLOG Colorado is honored to help lead these efforts.
AAPLOG CO is actively participating in several impactful collaborative initiatives across the state:
There are those who ask, “Why persist in Colorado?
Yet, each year in Colorado there are an estimated 24,610 abortions – 67 every day, nearly 3 per hour. Faced with that reality, how can anyone with a heart do nothing as this is happening in our communities?
We will not surrender Colorado’s women and children to an extreme abortion industry. Colorado’s story is not finished. Our hope is steadfast – Colorado will become a leader for LIFE – if we don’t give up.
Follow us on Social Media, and on the AAPLOG Colorado website.
By Wendy Smith, ACNP-Retired
A large study of ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) offers a basic benchmark for outpatient safety. Across more than 3.8 million patients, immediate hospital transfers occurred at a rate of just 1.1 per 1,000 discharges. When including emergency department visits or hospital admissions within seven days, the rate rose to 31.8 per 1,000. These standardized, rate-based measures allow outcomes to be tracked, compared, and meaningfully evaluated across high-volume centers.
In contrast, publicly reported data from a single abortion facility in Colorado point to an inordinate number of emergency responses. The facility generated seven ambulance or 911 calls over the course of one year, and an additional five to six calls in just the first three months of 2026. Even without precise procedure counts, this clustering of emergency calls at one location is striking and raises serious concerns about patient safety. At a minimum, it invites closer examination and prompts an obvious question: how frequently are ambulance or 911 calls occurring at other abortion facilities across the state?
The concern is compounded by a lack of transparency. Unlike ASCs, abortion facilities in Colorado are not subject to the same level of standardized reporting, publicly available data, or consistent oversight. There is no comprehensive system tracking complications or emergency outcomes, making it difficult to assess quality or identify patterns of risk. Without clear metrics and accountability, meaningful evaluation is not possible.
This demands greater scrutiny, increased transparency, consistent reporting, and strengthened oversight. Greater accountability provides an accurate understanding of patient outcomes and ensures that safety concerns are not overlooked. If Colorado were committed to high standards of healthcare, then greater transparency, consistent reporting, and appropriate oversight would apply uniformly across all outpatient settings. Only with that level of scrutiny can patient safety be fully protected and public trust maintained. However, that is not the case in Colorado. Abortion is not healthcare. Women are being harmed as babies’ lives are ended.
By Wendy J. Smith | Member executive team AAPLOG CO On June 23, 2025 – An anti-trafficking operation in Florida, dubbed Operation Dragon Eye, rescued 60 minors from sex trafficking. Their ages ranged from 9-17 years old. Forty three were girls, while 17 were
We are ecstatic that Bella Health + Wellness and Chelsea Mynyk, CNM, lawsuits resolved with permanent injunctions to prescribe Abortion Pill Reversal (bioidentical progesterone). Colorado law has not been repealed. However, this is a major win in the only state
(and Keeping Other States from Becoming Radically Pro-Abortion) By Catherine Wheeler, MD Co-chair of AAPLOG CO I moved to Colorado six years ago, the next year joining with the prolife community to attempt to restrict abortion after fetal viability. I
Initially, Wendy, Tom and I sought to develop a state chapter to increase our validity under the umbrella of AAPLOG, the preeminent medical voice defending both of our patients. We had been thwarted continuously at the Colorado legislature, and the
July 2024 marks one year since we proposed making Colorado the first-in-the-nation state chapter of the American Association of Pro-life OB/GYNs (AAPLOG). Though the chapter officially launched following the March for Life in Denver, in April 2024, a lot work
While Amendment 79 passed in 2024, our focus is now on exposing the predicted consequences and harms, with a goal to remove the constitutional amendment. The two most important thing we can right now, every day, is
Extremism; Malito, Rastrelli and Pasterz https://www.gjsentinel.com/opinion/columns/a-right-to-abortion-embeds-extremism-in-our-state-constitution/article_10afc50e-8ccb-11ef-a27e-eb5072418272.html
We, the undersigned healthcare professionals, wish to warn Coloradoans about the hazards of Amendment 79.
Amendment 79 would become the only medical intervention that is protected in the Colorado Constitution Bill of Rights. It would ensure unrestricted, unregulated, taxpayer funded access to abortion.
If adopted, Amendment 79 eliminates parental notification prior to a minor daughter’s abortion which is currently law in Colorado. This undermines the critical relationship between a teen, her parents, and their healthcare professional. It may leave a teen feeling isolated and alone as she makes one of the most important decisions of her young life and faces potential physical and emotional complications of an abortion by herself. A girl who is pregnant after sexual abuse or violence would be able to be coerced or forced to have an abortion, with no knowledge of the parent, protecting the perpetrators and harming the girls.
Amendment 79 would prevent Coloradoans and their elected representatives in the legislature from enacting any restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy after the fetus could survive independently from her mother if born prematurely. Some of us care for babies born at the same gestational age as these aborted fetuses and can attest to their humanity – their ability to feel pain and respond to their mother’s caress, voice, and scent. We know that approximately 500 fetuses are aborted each year in Colorado after the limit of viability. Most of these abortions are performed on healthy women carrying healthy babies. This is a tragedy that will only get worse if we pass Amendment 79.
We lament the fact that hundreds of healthy women in Colorado currently undergo abortions each year on healthy fetuses late in pregnancy because they feel they have no other options. As healthcare professionals, we believe there are more compassionate ways to address the financial and social needs of these women.
We are saddened by the abortion techniques that are deployed late in pregnancy that frequently involve the systematic dismemberment of a pain-capable fetus or the fetal poisoning that can result in hours of anguishing discomfort before death. Amendment 79 would strip the fetus of all legal value and protections and prevent professional medical organizations or state government from regulating abortion methods and prohibiting especially cruel abortion procedures.
We are appalled that second and third trimester abortion clinics are not licensed, regulated or inspected in Colorado despite the high-risk late abortion procedures that they perform. We know that Colorado already provides oversight of thousands of healthcare facilities including birth centers, community clinics, rural health clinics, rehab centers, ambulatory surgical centers, free standing emergency departments, dialysis centers, acute care facilities, nursing homes, assisted living centers, mental health centers, portable X-ray services, and physical/occupational/speech therapy services. If Amendment 79 passes, the state will be unable to establish or enforce prudent health and safety standards pertaining to second and third trimester abortion clinics. Our patients’ health and lives will continue to be jeopardized.
By creating a new constitutional right to abortion, the conscience rights of physicians, nurse practitioners, and nurses will be compromised. If Amendment 79 passes, they may be threatened with termination of their employment if they don’t refer women for abortions or participate in abortions – even if it is contrary to their core beliefs and values.
As healthcare professionals who care deeply for our patients, we feel it is our moral obligation to tell the truth about Amendment 79 and its impact on our community.
We want to hear from you!
