Lamont reaffirms support for abortion protections

As a gubernatorial candidate in 2018, Ned Lamont saw abortion as a litmus test for Republicans with former President Donald Trump expected to appoint a conservative justice to the U.S. Supreme Court who would support overturning Roe v. Wade.

Now, as the first-term Democratic governor runs for reelection, and many predict the landmark abortion case will be reversed or severely limited, Lamont has made a point of reaffirming his support for a woman’s right to choose.

The governor visited a Planned Parenthood health center on a busy stretch of Albany Avenue in Hartford last week to ask what more Connecticut can do as many conservative states are moving to restrict access.

“The Supreme Court keeps putting things back in a public place that we thought was settled law for years,” Lamont said, standing in an employee work area — modeled off an emergency room — where patient care is overseen. The center sees around 9,000 patient visits annually.

“My fingers are crossed that they do the right thing,” Lamont said. “And even if they don’t, you know Connecticut is going to stand with Planned Parenthood and reproductive rights no matter what.”

Politically, it’s a safe issue for Lamont, who is not likely to lose any voters over his support for the right to choose in a state that’s had an abortion statute on the books since 1990.

But advocates such as Planned Parenthood, the state’s largest abortion provider, say more can be done to enhance and protect access here, particularly as conservative states such as Texas advance anti-abortion legislation designed to evade legal challenges by empowering private citizens to enforce the law.

Texas’ six-week abortion ban, which the Supreme Court let stay in effect, has spurred copycat legislation in other states. Missouri lawmakers, for example, are considering a bill that would target out-of-state abortions by allowing private citizens to sue anyone who helps a Missouri resident have an abortion.

After Texas passed the country’s most restrictive abortion ban last fall,

Lamont took to social media to send a message to businesses in anti-abortion states: Relocate to Connecticut.

“We’re a family friendly state that respects women,” he said in a post on his Twitter page last September. “I know some of you are in states like Texas, which are outlawing a woman’s right to choose. We have codified, we are protecting a woman’s right to choose because that’s about respect.”

Amanda Skinner, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, said Texas patients have come to Connecticut for care and the number of out-of-state patients could grow if more states restrict access.

“Laws like the one in Texas harm people the most who live in rural areas, who don’t have the resources to go out of state, who may not have time off of work to get someplace else to access care,” Skinner said.

Over the past four years, the agency has performed 36,170 abortions in Connecticut. But in February, the agency had to cancel 30 percent of its abortion clinics around the state because it didn’t have enough physicians available — a sign that more providers are needed, Skinner said. Wait times are around two weeks, sometimes longer.

“When you’re in your first trimester of pregnancy and you want to have an abortion, two weeks is too long to make somebody wait,” Skinner said.

State Reps. Jillian Gilchrest, D-West Hartford, and Matt Blumenthal, DStamford, co-chairs of the newly formed Reproductive Rights Caucus in the General Assembly, joined Lamont on his tour of the health center.

The caucus is advocating for two main bills this legislative session — one that would prohibit Connecticut officials from assisting in out-of-state legal challenges involving abortions performed legally here and another that would allow advanced-practice clinicians, not just doctors, to perform abortions by suction, known as aspiration abortions. The latter is meant to expand the pool of abortion providers in the state.

Lamont said he supports both proposals. “We’re going to make sure we continue to take the lead, make sure everyone around the country knows what Connecticut stands for,” he said.