HARTFORD, Conn. — With a major U.S. Supreme Court ruling months away, the state Senate debated emotionally Friday night before approving a key abortion bill that would be the most far-reaching in Connecticut in the past 32 years.
The bipartisan bill would increase the number of medical professionals allowed to perform abortions in Connecticut and expand abortion-related protections regarding lawsuits.
After three hours of debate, the Senate voted 25-9 with two Republicans absent shortly before midnight.
The often-emotional, personal and passionate debate included opposition by some members of the legislature’s Black and Puerto Rican Caucus, who said they were inspired by a freshman legislator, Rep. Trenee McGee of West Haven, who spoke passionately recently before voting against the bill.
The state House of Representatives had voted 87-60 recently for the measure, and Gov. Ned Lamont has pledged to sign it into law.
Lawmakers debated the detailed, seven-page bill late Friday night in a rare discussion at the Capitol as the state’s abortion law from 1990 has remained largely unchanged for three decades.
One of the major provisions in the bill would expand the medical specialists who are allowed to perform abortion services — allowing advanced practice registered nurses, physician assistants and nurse-midwives to provide medication and aspiration abortions in the first trimester.
Connecticut would become the 15th state to allow a wider range of medical professionals, including New York, California, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
Sen. Douglas McCrory, a Hartford Democrat who supported the bill, said he has been in the legislature for 17 years and has heard many speeches. One of the best, he said, was McGee’s on abortion. He said she noted that Black women make up only 12% of the population but have 38% of abortions.
“She said it’s used as birth control in our community,” McCrory said. “I’m just giving you the facts. You make your own decision. ... Rep. McGee pulled the scab off something. Yes, she did.”
McCrory, who later voted for the bill, added, “Anyone who knows me knows I stay in my lane. ... The issue of women’s rights — I don’t touch that. Women should do whatever they want with their body.’’
Sen. Patricia Billie Miller, a Stamford Democrat, and others talked passionately on the Senate floor about Margaret Sanger, the founding of Planned Parenthood and the history of abortion.
“Babies were ripped from Black mothers, African mothers, during slavery,” she said. “That’s the history that Black women and Native American women have had to endure. ... There’s no way that I can accept a system that would intentionally take a baby from a mother. ... Yes, they sterilized men, too. It wasn’t just women.”
Miller noted that legislators often say that the brain is still developing until age 25 when they talk about issues like juvenile justice.
“We’re saying if an 18-year-old wants to have an abortion, she can do that. ... That gives me pause,” Miller said. “My friends who had abortions at 18 ... and it still bothers them. ... I will not stand here and support a system that was designed to take advantage of people who didn’t know any better.”
She said that some women who are now in their 60s and 70s are still depressed about having an abortion decades earlier.
“I know I’m not going to be the most popular person after tonight,” Miller told her colleagues. “(McGee) said, in the black community, abortions are birth control. That’s true. ... I hear family planning — code word for abortion. Why can’t it be a code word for planning your family?
“I agree it is her body to choose. ... I cannot support a system that has tried, systemically, to get rid of a race of people. ... Sorry, this is about racism, and that’s how I view this. ... I’m sorry if I’m emotional ... but this goes back to Africa for me. ... This goes deeper than just choice. ... Sometimes we don’t have the choice because we don’t have the money.”
The next speaker, Sen. Marilyn Moore of Bridgeport, said that her heart was racing as she stood up to speak due to her emotions on the issue. An employee for Planned Parenthood for eight years, she said she helped women to get mammograms.
“I knew about Ms. Sanger,” she said. “What I learned at Planned Parenthood was how much racism and distrust there is in the medical system. ... People talk about why Black people don’t want to get vaccinated because we’ve had medical apartheid. ... Right now, I’m not feeling good about this bill.
“Planned Parenthood will need to step up and say we need to do better.”
At the start of the debate, Sen. Gary Winfield, a New Haven Democrat, said that Connecticut needs to act because of the pending Supreme Court action.
“We have to think about what we will do when that time comes,” Winfield told colleagues in a debate that started at 8:48 p.m. Friday.
Sen. Saud Anwar, a South Windsor Democrat who is a medical doctor, said that if someone had told him five years ago that the state Senate would be debating abortion, “I would be laughing at them ... but here we are.”
As abortions are restricted in multiple states like Texas, Anwar predicted, “We will be a place of refuge for a lot of people.’'
Abortion rights advocates are highly concerned that the U.S. Supreme Court this year might overrule the 1973 landmark Roe vs. Wade ruling — meaning that all 50 states would individually decide the abortion rules in their jurisdiction.
Another key provision in the bill would allow Connecticut to protect the medical records of women who travel here from states like Texas or Louisiana. The information would also be protected from subpoenas in other states.
In addition, if a Connecticut resident is sued under a Texas-style abortion law, the bill would give them the right for a counter-suit in order to recover reimbursement, attorney’s fees and costs. A “clawback” provision would protect Connecticut residents from Senate Bill 8 in Texas that allows private citizens in Texas to sue a doctor performing an abortion in Connecticut. The bill changes the state’s extradition statute so that Connecticut residents could not be summoned by other states, legislators said.
“What’s happening in other states is an attack on women’s health,” said Senate majority leader Bob Duff of Norwalk. “What I see is mostly men, who look like me,” offering bills to restrict abortion in other states.
Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney, a longtime New Haven attorney, said the bill would lead to “a prevention of a chaotic legal situation that could happen in our country.”
Sen. John Kissel of Enfield, the ranking Senate Republican on the legislature’s judiciary committee, said constituents in his district have strong views on both ends of the abortion spectrum.
“We could spend days debating when does life begin, but I will not do that,” said Kissel, who has served 30 years in the Senate. “All of these are difficult moral questions, religious questions, technological questions, but I’m not going to get into that.”
Kissel, who opposed the bill Friday night, said he once offered a bill on parental notification for minors who are getting an abortion, but the measure never passed.
“The advocates of the pro-choice notion were upset that we even had a public hearing,” Kissel said. “People feel very passionately on both sides of this issue.
“We’re sort of a live-and-let-live state right now, protecting women’s rights.”
Sen. Heather Somers, the ranking Senate Republican on the public health committee, said the bill protects Connecticut’s medical professionals from being sued by another state.
“It is somewhat outrageous that another state thinks it can come into our state and sue clinicians,” said Somers, who supported the bill.
Sen. Henri Martin, a Bristol Republican, said, “There are some here tonight to defend the right of the unborn. ... This is going to be an ongoing fight.”
Sen. Dennis Bradley, a Bridgeport Democrat, said that only two medical professionals gave testimony at the judiciary committee and both questioned the bill. He said the legislature had not collected enough empirical data in the process to make its decision.
“By moving forward in this fashion and not flushing things out in the committee process ... I think we should all proceed with caution,” Bradley said.
But Anwar said that about 100 people testified on the public health aspects of abortion under a separate bill that was merged into the final bill.
Amanda Skinner, a nurse-midwife who serves as chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, said recently that the bill was needed because some women now wait more than two weeks for a first-trimester abortion as there is a shortage of medical providers.
“Abortion access is on the line,” Skinner told reporters in Hartford. “Connecticut must be a state where abortion care is acceptable without shame, stigma or fear.”
Democratic legislators say that some patients from Texas have already traveled to Planned Parenthood in Hartford’s North End, but they could not say how many out-of-state patients have arrived.
Besides the Catholic Conference, one of the leaders in the lobbying against the issue is the Family Institute of Connecticut. The institute was pushing against a constitutional amendment in favor of abortion rights, but insiders said the amendment is not expected to come up for a vote.
“Abortion is the most sacred of their unholy sacraments,” the institute told supporters in an email. “And please pray. Whatever victories we may have, should God grant them to us, belong ultimately to Him. Please pray for the defeat of all ... of these bills.”
After the vote, Rep. Jillian Gilchrest of West Hartford said Connecticut is stepping forward due to national trends.
“As states like Oklahoma continue to enact extreme anti-abortion laws and we anticipate the overturn of Roe v. Wade in June, Connecticut stands at the forefront of protecting reproductive rights,” she said. “Although Roe is codified in our state law and abortion will remain legal here, that does not mean we are fully protected nor that everyone has access. This bill is critical as we prepare for a post-Roe America.”
———
