The threat to reproductive rights in Conn.
For almost 50 years, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade has protected an individual’s fundamental right to decide whether or when to be pregnant. Generations of people — especially women — have ordered their lives around its protections. They have depended upon it for their autonomy, their equality, and the realization of their hopes and dreams. Study after study has shown Americans support Roe and the right to choose by overwhelming margins.
Today, that right is under threat as never before, and in ways many of us did not anticipate.
Last fall, the Supreme Court declined to block S.B. 8, the Texas abortion ban that deputizes private bounty hunters to sue, for ruinous statutory damages, any person or organization — physician, nurse, clinic, friend, even the
Uber driver — who assists an individual in obtaining an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.
Oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case challenging Mississippi’s criminal ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, made clear five Supreme Court justices are prepared to overturn Roe. The decision will be handed down this June.
Connecticut is in a better position than most states. Many states that have traditionally supported reproductive rights still have longdormant antiabortion laws on their books. If Roe is overturned, these old bans will instantly spring back into effect. Luckily, in 1990, we in Connecticut passed Roe into statute and repealed our old abortion bans.
But we are not fully protected. That’s because reactionary legislatures across the country are passing a wave of radical legislation to ban not only nearly all abortions within their borders, but also to criminalize or burden reproductive healthcare provided in states that protect reproductive rights — states including Connecticut.
States have significant power to enforce their laws outside their borders, and antiabortion states have already shown that they will use that power to its maximum. Texas’s S.B. 8 and its copycats have no territorial limits. A similar Missouri bill expressly targets out-of-state clinics. Another Missouri bill would criminalize aiding in any abortion where the fetus “may have been conceived” by sexual intercourse in the state.
These laws will be used to target physicians, nurses, medical facilities, friends, family, or others who provide or assist others in obtaining reproductive healthcare that is legally protected here in Connecticut. Additionally, as people from states determined to deny reproductive rights seek care here, our health care infrastructure will likely need additional capacity.
The General Assembly’s newly formed, 50-memberstrong Reproductive Rights Caucus has mobilized to meet these challenges and developed a two-pronged agenda for this legislative session. First, we must take steps to ensure sufficient access to reproductive health care. Second, we must take measures to prevent other states from imposing their extremist laws here in Connecticut.
House Bill 5261 tackles the first challenge by updating Connecticut’s Roe statute to reflect the current standard of care. It would allow us to join the 14 other states, including New York and Massachusetts, that have authorized certain advanced healthcare practitioners other than physicians to provide abortion-related care. The relevant physician licensing body, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, enthusiastically supports this measure to safely increase the number of providers who can provide abortion care.
Meanwhile, H.B. 5414 addresses out-of-state efforts to criminalize or impose civil liability for abortion care provided legally here in Connecticut. It would prohibit state agencies from assisting
The General Assembly’s newly formed, 50-member-strong Reproductive Rights Caucus has mobilized to meet these challenges and developed a two-pronged agenda for this legislative session.
in out-of-state investigations or prosecutions of reproductive healthcare that is legal in Connecticut. It would protect medical privacy by preventing disclosure of health records or the enforcement of out-of-state subpoenas related to reproductive healthcare that is legal in our state. It would update our extradition statute to ensure Connecticut does not hand over our residents to other states seeking to prosecute them merely for obtaining, providing, or assisting others in obtaining care that is legal here.
Finally, it would create a “clawback” statute. This provision would allow any person sued under another state’s S.B. 8-style bounty law for legal reproductive health care here in Connecticut to sue their persecutor right back for reimbursement, plus legal fees, costs, and punitive damages.
These measures have all been assessed Constitutional by leading experts in the relevant legal fields. And they are purely defensive — they come into effect only if other states try to impose their laws on reproductive health care in our state. They expressly do not shield any conduct that would be illegal in Connecticut. They say to other states: put down your sword, and we will lay down our shield.
Unfortunately, recent history teaches that these laws will soon be necessary to protect Connecticut healthcare providers, medical facilities, and residents. And if we wait to act until after the Supreme Court overturns Roe in June, it may be too late.
Connecticut has a long history as a leader on reproductive rights. The times have called upon us again. We must pass the Reproductive Rights Caucus’s agenda this session. And our state must continue to work to ensure all its residents can exercise their fundamental right to control their reproductive destinies.