R.I. lawmakers push to wipe out outdated abortion laws

Feb. 04--PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The battle over abortion resumes at the State House this week with a push to finally "wipe off Rhode Island's books" vestigial laws -- with no current force-and-effect -- that could be resurrected by a Trump-era Supreme Court.

One law requires prior notice to a spouse. Another prohibits insurance coverage for an abortion in most cases unless the woman has paid a premium for a policy that gave her the option. A third mandates the imprisonment for up to seven years of anyone who attempts to induce a "miscarriage" in a pregnant woman. And a fourth, dating back to 1973, says: "human life commences at the instant of conception."

All were effectively rendered moot by the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision 45 years ago, as well as subsequent court rulings.

But "we have a president who is anti-choice, no friend of women, and has demonstrated a reckless disregard for the Constitution," said state Rep. Edith Ajello, the lead sponsor of H7340, the House version of this year's reworked Reproductive Health Care Act.

"We have anti-choice leaders in both chambers of Congress, and a Supreme Court whose balance could help the other two branches destroy the protections provided by Roe v. Wade. Unless we erase these unconstitutional laws, it is feasible that the women of Rhode Island could be knocked back a half-century to the days of secret, dangerous back-room abortions," Ajello said last week after introducing the bill.

"Our state has lacked the political will to repeal these unconstitutional laws, and that inaction is now putting the health and rights of Rhode Island women at genuine risk," added the lead Senate sponsor, Gayle Goldin, in a news release last week. "Women deserve better from the leaders of our state."

Abortion-rights advocates have called a State House news conference for Tuesday to talk about the legislation that a number of Democratic women legislators introduced in the House and Senate last week.

The other lead sponsors in the House include Moria Walsh, Julie Casimiro, Susan Donovan and Marcia Ranglin-Vassell, and in the Senate, V. Susan Sosnowski, Jeanine Calkin and Donna M. Nesselbush, along with Joshua Miller.

The media advisory said: "Planned Parenthood Votes! Rhode Island and allies [will] hold press conference announcing 2018 legislative initiatives that protect and enhance reproductive health care and rights across Rhode Island."

Ajello said the legislation is significantly different than last year's version, which contained wording that was sharply criticized as "extreme" by the Rhode Island Right to Life Committee -- which held its annual "Pro-Life Rally" at the State House on Jan. 24. The estimated crowd size was 175 to 200 adults.

The core of the reworked bill remains the same. The legislation prohibits the state, and any of its political subdivisions, from placing any restrictions on the termination of a pregnancy "prior to fetal viability," which is defined as "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 with or without artificial support."

Barth Bracy, the Right to Life Committee's executive director, said in an email over the weekend that the reworked bill "attempt[s] to address the fact that last year's bill would have put abortionists beyond the regulatory oversight of state and local government agencies ... [but] fails to adequately address this very serious problem.

"In short, it remains seriously misleading to characterize this bill as merely 'placing an abortion-rights guarantee in state law.' "

His view: "It goes way beyond that and would make Rhode Island a haven for abortionists with virtually unrestricted and unregulated taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand right up to the moment of birth -- including partial-birth abortions and late-term dismemberment abortions on pain-capable unborn children whose organs and body parts might then be harvested and sold as is presently being investigated by the Justice Department."

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