Bill would safeguard right to abortion in R.I.

Feb. 02--PROVIDENCE -- Rhode Island lawmakers, fearful that Donald Trump's presidency will lead to the reversal of the landmark 1973 abortion-rights ruling known as Roe v. Wade, have renewed their drive to safeguard the right to an abortion in Rhode Island, no matter what the U.S. Supreme Court may do in the future.

Co-sponsored by 36 of the 75 members of the Rhode Island House of Representatives, the bill that Rep. Edith Ajello, D-Providence, reintroduced on Wednesday, says:

"Neither the state, nor any of its agencies, or political subdivisions shall: Interfere with a woman's decision to prevent, commence, continue, or terminate a pregnancy provided the decision is made prior to fetal viability; Restrict the use of medically recognized methods of contraception or abortion; or Restrict the manner in which medically recognized methods of contraception or abortion are provided."

The term "fetal viability" is defined to mean: "that stage of gestation where the attending physician, taking into account the particular facts of the case, has determined that there is a reasonable likelihood of the fetus' sustained survival outside of the womb."

The legislation was immediately denounced by the Rev. Bernard A. Healey, lobbyist for the Catholic Diocese of Rhode Island, as "a radical attempt to remove all state regulation from the unethical and questionable practices of abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood. ... Removing this regulation by the state disregards the health and safety of thousands of women and children in Rhode Island."

If passed, he said the legislation would also codify, in state law, "the violent attack upon the life and dignity of every unborn child. Such a grave moral evil must always be rejected by people of good will especially by the elected leaders of our state."

But the "pro-choice" advocates who packed the State House rotunda came with a very different message, which matched their signs: "Our Bodies. Our Choice."

"This is the beginning of our battle to convince the leadership in the House and the Senate that it is time for a vote," Ajello said. "With an avowedly anti-choice president, and anti-choice Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress, our fears of a crucial change in the composition of the U.S. Supreme Court are about to be realized."

The 72-year-old Ajello talked about the summer of 1965, when she was 21, unmarried and pregnant from the first time she had sex.

Looking back, she said, she considers herself one of the lucky ones because a "sympathetic professor" at Bucknell University pointed her towards a doctor in a Pennsylvania mining town who performed abortions, "not a legal abortion, but a safe abortion."

She said she later learned that "Dr. Spencer" performed thousands of abortions and was "protected by the community around him because he also treated coal miners with black lung disease ... and he was the only doctor in the area who would go into a coal mine to treat an injured coal miner."

"I went to that doctor. Had an abortion. Cried a lot that summer. But I am still glad that I had that abortion," she said.

"Too many [other] women in those years before Roe v. Wade weren't lucky enough to find a doctor like Dr. Spencer. ... Too many women died. We cannot go back there," Ajello said.

Sen. Gayle Goldin, D-Providence, said: "You know we have a president now who brags about sexually assaulting women, about grabbing them ... [and] he's made it pretty clear that he knows the one thing women are good for and to him ... it's not about our minds."

Rabbi Sarah Mack, president of the Board of Rabbis of Greater Rhode Island, said the underlying issue is "religious freedom."

"As a rabbi, I will tell you that all life in Judaism is sacred, and while an unborn fetus is precious and to be protected, Judaism places a higher value on existing life than on potential life," she said. "Ultimately, these are not choices that should be legislated."

The co-sponsors of Ajello's bill include eight of the 16 House Judiciary Committee members. A ninth -- House Minority Whip Blake Filippi, R-Block Island -- may hold the swing vote.

Filippi on Wednesday said he has not yet read the legislation, but would describe himself as "pro-privacy and pro-autonomy from government," and that is what the U.S. Supreme Court "got right" in Roe v. Wade. As he reads it, the decision "does not say your right to abortion is inherent in the Constitution," but rather the right to privacy and autonomy is -- which, he believes, is appropriate in the first trimester of a pregnancy.

It remains unclear if any of these arguments will sway House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello and Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed, both Catholics who won their reelections with backing from the Rhode Island Right to Life Committee.

Asked where Democrat Mattiello currently stands, his spokesman Larry Berman said: "It is premature for Speaker Mattiello to comment. As always, the bill will go through the committee process." Through a spokesman, Democrat Paiva Weed said almost word-for-word the same thing.

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