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Colorado police and the FBI are investigating a fire at a pregnancy center early Saturday morning as arson after finding graffiti and threatening messages scrawled on the Denver-area building.
The fire broke out at Life Choices in the city of Longmont around 3:17 a.m., police wrote in a Facebook post. The facility “sustained fire and heavy smoke damage” but no injuries were reported.
The fire came hours after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case precedent that had established abortion as a constitutional right. The 5-4 decision means states will now decide whether they want to ban or limit abortions, and about half of states have already done so or will restrict it further in the near future.
Photos submitted by Longmont Public Safety showed the pregnancy center was vandalized with black paint in several areas.
One message on the side of the building read: “if abortions aren’t safe neither are you,” while another written on the sidewalk read: “BANS OFF OUR BODIES.”
Longmont is about a half-hour outside of Denver, which saw thousands of abortion rights protesters march across the city over the weekend to protest the Supreme Court’s decision.
In April, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed a bill into law guaranteeing access to abortion, setting the stage for the state to become an abortion haven with much of the Midwest’s abortion clinics expected to soon stop offering the procedure.
In a statement on Friday, Polis said “Coloradans do not want politicians making their healthcare decisions.”
“Coloradans don’t have to worry because our rights are still protected today despite the unfortunate reality that the U.S. Supreme Court just rolled those freedoms back for millions of Americans in other states,” the governor added. “In Colorado, we will continue to choose freedom and we stand against government control over our bodies.”
–Updated at 8:22 a.m.
