CONN. BILL TO SAFEGUARD ABORTION RIGHTS PASSES

Aims to shield providers, patients from legal actions

Connecticut lawmakers approved a bill late Friday night that takes direct aim at states that have passed aggressive anti-abortion laws as the country prepares for a Supreme Court ruling this summer that could weaken or overturn the constitutional right to abortion enshrined in Roe v. Wade.

The Connecticut bill, which Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, has said he intends to sign, would expand the field of people who can perform certain types of abortions beyond doctors, to include nurse-midwives, physician assistants and other medical professionals.

And in what lawmakers said could be a model for other states seeking to safeguard abortion rights, the law would also shield abortion providers and patients from lawsuits initiated by states that have banned or plan to ban abortion, even outside their own borders.

The law would protect a provider in Connecticut who administers an abortion that is legal in the state to a resident of a different state where the procedure is illegal, by prohibiting Connecticut authorities from cooperating with investigative requests or extradition orders from the patient’s home state. The law would also allow people who are sued over their role in providing an abortion to countersue in Connecticut court, and to recoup legal fees and other costs if they win.

As states across the country prepare for the possibility of a post-roe world, many are tightening restrictions on abortion. Twentysix states — a swath stretching from Florida to Idaho — would ban or severely restrict the procedure if the court overturns Roe.

On the other side of the issue, Connecticut joins California, Maryland and Colorado in trying to protect abortion access by increasing the number of providers. But Connecticut’s bill goes further than laws in other states by protecting providers and women who seek abortions from prosecution by authorities in places where abortion could become illegal.

Connecticut is preparing for what could be pitched legal battles between states. Legislation in some states, including Missouri, has proposed making abortion illegal even when one of its residents travels outside the state for the procedure. A law in effect since September in Texas bans abortions after six weeks, relying on members of the public to sue anyone, from a taxi driver to the doctor, who “aids or abets” a woman seeking an abortion there.

Idaho and Oklahoma have passed similar laws, and lawmakers in states that protect abortion rights say they fear that residents of their states who donate to funds that help women in restrictive states travel for abortions could be prosecuted.

“The states that have passed some of these quite extreme laws have indicated that they are interested not only in attacking abortions that are within their borders, but also in places where it is expressly legal,” Rep. Matt Blumenthal, Dconn., who sponsored the bill, said. “Other states that do support abortion rights are going to need to pass laws like this in order to protect their residents and their health care providers.”