The Connecticut state Senate passed a bipartisan bill late Friday that would make the state a “place of refuge” for women seeking abortions, as well as their abortionists, by offering protection from out-of-state lawsuits.
The bill, H.B. 5414, would also allow non-doctors to perform abortions, allowing advanced registered nurses, nurse-midwives and physician assistants to provide medication and aspiration abortions in the first trimester.
The measure passed the Senate in a 25-9 vote. Connecticut’s Democratic governor, Ned Lamont, has vowed to sign the legislation into law.
The legislation aims to combat strict abortion laws in other states by allowing people who face legal liability for violating other states’ abortion laws to sue for damages in Connecticut courts.
The bill aims “to provide protections for persons receiving and providing reproductive health care services in the state.” It would allow a person who “has had a judgment entered” against him or her in any state where liability is based on “the alleged provision, receipt, assistance in receipt or provision, material support for, or any theory of… liability… for reproductive health care services that are permitted under the laws of this state,” the person may “recover damages from any party that brought the action leading to that judgment.”
One of the bill’s sponsors, Democratic state Representative Matt Blumenthal, said legislators in pro-life states have “made clear that their intent is not only to ban abortion within their own states borders but to ban it in states where it is expressly permitted.”
The Senate approval comes after the state house passed the measure 87-60 following a two-hour debate earlier this month, with 14 Democrats voting against it and seven Republicans voting in support of it, according to the Hartford Courant.
Some Republicans pushed back against the provision allowing non-doctors to perform abortions, however.
“We can all agree that we want abortions to be legal, safe and rare,” said Connecticut state Representative Kimberly Fiorello, a Republican. “And I believe that this bill is going in the opposite direction.”
The new legislation comes after Texas passed a law last year allowing private citizens to sue providers who perform abortions after a heartbeat can be detected.
While other state-level bans on abortion before 24 weeks have been blocked by the courts due to Supreme Court precedent, the Texas law has a unique enforcement mechanism that allows any individual to sue anyone who knowingly performs or aids in an abortion after a fetal heartbeat has been detected, removing the responsibility of enforcement from the state’s executive branch and placing it into the hands of citizens. Plaintiffs can earn up to $10,000 in damages through litigation.
However, women who receive an abortion cannot be sued under the Texas law.
The Connecticut bill aims to protect those who violate the Texas law, or similar laws in other states. The bill would also allow the state to protect the medical records of women who travel to the state for an abortion.
It comes as the Supreme Court is poised to issue a ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case that has allowed the justices to revisit Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion.
State Senator Saud Anwar, a Democrat, called the national abortion landscape a “crisis,” the Washington Post reported.
“We will be a place of refuge for a lot of people,” Anwar said.