Richard D. Lamm, who as a Colorado state legislator led fights to pass the nation’s first abortion rights law in the years before Roe v. Wade and to block the 1976 Winter Olympics from being held in his state, and who went on to serve three terms as Colorado’s governor, died on Thursday in Denver. He was 85.

The cause was complications of a pulmonary embolism, a spokesman for the family, Eric Sondermann, said.

In 1967, Mr. Lamm, a Democrat, was the chief legislative force behind Colorado’s legalizing abortion in cases when the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest, the woman’s health was threatened or the baby would most likely be born handicapped. By 1970, 13 states had followed Colorado’s lead and passed their own liberalizing abortion laws.

“I decided that would probably be the end of my career, but it just seemed to me outrageous that you would force unwilling women to have unwanted children,” Mr. Lamm told The Associated Press in 1996. “I just can’t not fight for what I believe in.”

As a state lawmaker from 1966 to 1974, he also campaigned against Denver’s hosting the 1976 Olympics even though the city had been awarded the Games. He argued that it would damage the environment and sap state funds. Colorado voters rejected spending government money on the Games, and the event was shifted to Innsbruck, Austria.

Denver voters later passed an initiative requiring voter approval for any future proposals to host the Olympics. Mr. Lamm once said that he had been treated as a “pariah” by the business community over the episode.

He continued to warn about the drawbacks of economic development and unchecked growth as the state’s longest-serving governor, from 1975 to 1987. He signed measures to protect parks and tried to thwart the construction of Denver International Airport.

Mr. Lamm, who was popularly known as Dick, initially had the benefit of a Democratic House to help him pass legislation on land use and growth management, but Republicans took over the Legislature two years into his administration and promptly reined in the power of the executive branch on these issues.

Richard Douglas Lamm was born on Aug. 3, 1935, in Madison, Wis. His father, Arnold, was an executive at a coal company, and his mother, Mary (Townsend) Lamm, was a homemaker. The family moved several times during his youth. He attended middle school and high school in Mount Lebanon, Pa., a suburb of Pittsburgh.

He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1957 and then served two years in the Army. He earned a law degree from University of California, Berkeley, in 1961.

In 1962 he became an attorney for the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Commission, and from 1965 to 1974 he had his own law practice in Denver.

He married Dottie Vennard in 1963. She was a columnist for The Denver Post. In addition to his wife, Mr. Lamm is survived by their two children, Scott and Heather Lamm; two brothers, Tom and Terry; and four grandchildren. He lived in Denver, where he spent his entire adult life, and died in a hospital there.

In 1992, he lost to Ben Nighthorse Campbell in a Democratic primary race for a seat in the Senate, which Mr. Campbell won in the general election. In 1996, he sought the presidential nomination of the Reform Party but lost to the Texas tycoon Ross Perot.

After leaving politics, Mr. Lamm was executive director of the University of Denver’s Center for Public Policy and Contemporary Issues and the co-author of several political books.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.