Slew of bills sparks abortion face-off at the State House

March 31--PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Abortion rights. Women's rights. The "flutter" of a fetal heartbeat.

More than 170 people on opposing sides of the national abortion debate jammed a Rhode Island State House corridor on Wednesday night for a chance to speak at a heart-wrenching 6 1/2 -hour hearing.

On the antiabortion side: A Scituate woman who told the lawmakers, "I am just a grieving mother of four dead children who I am responsible for killing."

On the pro-choice side: Susan Morettini, who came to the rostrum holding a small black-and-white framed photo of the grandmother she said she never met because she died at age 30 from a botched abortion in Providence, before abortions were legal and relatively safe.

While these were echoes of hearings past, abortion-rights advocates this year had a new urgency in their voices, prompted by their fears of what could happen with a GOP-led Congress intent on defunding Planned Parenthood and President Donald Trump in a position to reverse 44 years of Roe v. Wade legal history with appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Lawyer and staunch antiabortion activist Joseph Cavanagh told the lawmakers that there is no rush to pass legislation.

"I ask you to ask yourselves: Why are you doing this now? Because there's a president who's pro-life? Ronald Reagan was pro-life. The Bush presidents were pro-life. Because there's a pro-life president doesn't mean Roe v. Wade is going to be overturned in the year 2017.

"Let's wait and see what happens," Cavanagh said.

But Rep. Edith Ajello, the lead sponsor of a bill to ban state interference in a woman's decision to terminate a pregnancy, said the need for action "has never seemed more urgent. We have a president who campaigned with a promise -- a vow -- to appoint Supreme Court justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade."

Added lawyer Lynette Labinger: "Even if Roe itself is never overturned, there is legitimate concern about the court eroding the principles underlying that decision such that a woman's exercise of her decision whether or not to terminate a pregnancy becomes more theoretical than realistic."

In Rhode Island, the number of abortions dropped by 14 percent from 2011 to 2014, to 3,580. Meanwhile, contributions to Planned Parenthood of Southern New England more than doubled, according to the organization. A Planned Parenthood spokesman reports that 8,700 of the 14,000 individual contributors since Election Day 2016 were first-time contributors. Planned Parenthood did not release the amounts raised.

Wednesday night's hearing by the House Judiciary Committee focused on five bills at extreme ends of the debate. All were held for further study, with no signal whether any will receive a vote.

From the antiabortion lobby came the bills to prohibit what is described as "a dismemberment abortion on a living unborn child," except to save the life of the pregnant woman; bar abortions based solely on the sex of the unborn child; and define the point at which human life begins as the point at which there is a detectable heartbeat, or "flutter."

The abortion-rights advocates focused their efforts on Ajello's bill to bar any arm of Rhode Island government from interfering with a woman's decision to "terminate a pregnancy provided the decision is made prior to fetal viability" -- which is defined as the point at which the attending physician determines "there is a reasonable likelihood of the fetus' sustained survival outside of the womb."

Barth Bracy, executive director of Rhode Island Right to Life, described the bill as "the most extreme abortion bill we have seen in Rhode Island."

As he read it, it would prohibit the state from restricting the use of any "medically recognized method" of abortion in order to, in effect, "establish a regimen of virtually unregulated, taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand in Rhode Island, right up until the moment of birth."

He said the definition of "fetal viability" is so loose that it would leave the determination "to the discretion of the 'attending physician,' that is, the abortionist who stands to gain financially."

The 72-year-old Ajello, D-Providence, said she is open to reworking the wording. But she said, "It is not extreme. It is simply saying that Rhode Island will continue as we are now, with abortions regulated by the Department of Health, legal to the point of viability unless the woman's life is in danger. We simply want to put in law what is practice now."

Labinger, a volunteer attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island, raised the possibility that decisions emanating from a Trump-shaped court could resurrect a number of "obsolete" laws that were stricken by a court or deemed unenforceable but are, nevertheless, still on the state's books.

She cited as examples: a pre-Roe ban on abortions that remains ensconced in the state's criminal laws (RIGL 11-3-1); a "partial birth abortion" ban; a law banning the "murder of an unborn quick child," which, contrary to Roe, contains no exception to protect the woman's health; and a spousal notice requirement.

"Their continued presence has had no significance up to now. But we live in uncertain times and a change at the national level may give rise to some arguing that these old, unconstitutional and obsolete statutes have new force," Labinger said.

Abortion-related bills

H5100, by Rep. Arthur Corvese, et al., prohibits and also creates a new category of crime for performing what is described as "a dismemberment abortion on a living unborn child," except to preserve the life of the pregnant woman.

H5158, by Rep. Deborah Fellela, et al., prohibits a doctor from performing -- or attempting to perform -- an abortion "with knowledge that the pregnant woman is seeking the abortion solely on account of the sex of the unborn child."

H5399, by Rep. James McLaughlin, et al., would define the moment at which human life begins as the point at which there is "a fetal heartbeat or flutter."

H5343, by Rep. Edith Ajello, et al., would bar any arm of Rhode Island government from interfering with a woman's decision to "terminate a pregnancy provided the decision is made prior to fetal viability."

H5830, by Rep. Arthur Handy, et al., would repeal a state law requiring advance notice to "the husband" of a woman planning an abortion, which remains on the state's books even though it has been ruled unconstitutional.

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