House Bill 5414

Anti-abortion legislators in Texas, where Roe had originally been filed, and other states had been trying for several years to pass "heartbeat" bills that would ban all abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, usually within six weeks of conception.[7] This conflicts with Planned Parenthood v. Casey,[8] a successor case to Roe, which had held that the state can regulate abortion prior to viability, roughly twice that time, only to the extent necessary to protect the health of the patient,[9] and accordingly federal courts have barred enforcement of those laws.[7]

In March 2021, Texas's Senate Bill 8, another heartbeat bill, allowing no exceptions even for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest,[10] was introduced[11] with provisions designed to prevent pre-enforcement injunctions: it allowed enforcement only through private lawsuits by private citizens who were not government employees. Since only state officials can be sued to prevent enforcement of an allegedly unconstitutional law, its supporters expected it to survive a facial court challenge.[12]

In May of that year it passed both houses of the legislature and was signed into law by governor Greg Abbott as the Texas Heartbeat Act. On September 1 it went into effect.[11] Lawsuits were filed in state and federal court to block it. The former resulted in a December ruling that held portions of the bill in violation of the Texas Constitution but declined to enjoin its enforcement.[13]

The federal action, Whole Women's Health v. Jackson, sought to block enforcement before its effective date by naming several court clerks and judges as defendants on the grounds that, as state officials, they would play a role in enforcing the law. The motion for a preliminary injunction reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that the plaintiffs lacked standing as no actual suit against an abortion provider had yet been brought.[14] On remand to the Fifth Circuit of Appeals, the Texas Supreme Court was asked to certify whether state medical licensing officials could be named as defendants since they might have the power to enforce sanctions against providers accused of violating the law. It said the law prohibited those officials from doing so, and without any defendants, the suit had to be dismissed.[10][lower-alpha 1]

Connecticut has been a national leader in both restricting and permitting abortion, dating to colonial times. In 1742 a Pomfret woman named Sarah Grosvenor died from the complications of a surgical abortion. John Hallowell, the physician believed to have performed it, and Amasa Sessions, the suitor who had allegedly impregnated her, were tried under common law for causing her death; Hallowell was convicted of a misdemeanor and Sessions acquitted of all charges. It was the first known criminal prosecution of a physician over an abortion in British America.[16][17] Connecticut also became the first state to criminalize abortion in its statutes in 1821, when it made it illegal for pharmacists to sell mixtures designed to induce abortions after the fourth month of a pregnancy.[18]

The Supreme Court's 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut decision, striking down the state's prohibition on the sale or use of contraceptives, laid the legal foundation for Roe through its recognition of an implied constitutional right to privacy.[19] In Connecticut a large group of women filed suit in federal court for the District of Connecticut to block enforcement of the state's abortion law, which allowed the procedure only when the life of the patient was in danger. The court ruled in their favor in 1972, and after the General Assembly amended the statute to include a preamble stating its purpose in preserving life, it found that insufficient when it reviewed the statute a second time later that year, holding that a fetus is not a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.[20][21]

Roe made any appeal moot, and in the years afterwards a postmortem 1964 photograph of Gerri Santoro, a Coventry woman who died in a Norwich motel after her boyfriend attempted to perform a surgical abortion on her, became a rallying image for the national abortion rights movement.[22] In 1990, Gov. William O'Neill, despite his personal opposition to abortion as a Catholic, signed into law a bill that had passed the General Assembly overwhelmingly, repealing Connecticut's older statutes criminalizing abortion and declaring that, prior to viability, the decision about the abortion was entirely the woman's. This ensured that even were Roe to be overturned, abortion would remain legal in Connecticut under its terms.[23]

In the late 20th century Connecticut voters began to be seen as strongly supportive of abortion rights across party lines as the Democratic Party dominated state politics. Thomas Meskill, governor during the 1972 federal lawsuit, was the last executive to actively oppose abortion rights. The next Republican to win that post, John Rowland, supported abortion rights in office after having been opposed to them as a member of the U.S. House.[24]

In early 2021, Connecticut Reps. Matt Blumenthal, of the state House's 147th district in the Fairfield County towns of Darien and Stamford, also son of the state's senior U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal,[25] and Jillian Gilchrest from the 18th district in West Hartford, also formerly the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut, formed the House's Reproductive Freedom Caucus out of concern that the U.S. Supreme Court's disinterest in reviewing the Texas law, and some of the justices' questions and statements during oral argument in Dobbs, indicated that Roe's overturn was imminent.[6] At a news conference held in late January by the caucus, activists, and other legislators including House Speaker Matthew Ritter, to mark the decision's 49th anniversary, Blumenthal noted that although Connecticut had long ago codified the terms of Roe into state law, "there is much more work to do to expand access to reproductive healthcare and protect our residents from other states’ extreme laws. There is no time to waste: we must act now." He and Gilchrest indicated that, in consultation with the caucus, they would seek legislation that would expand access to abortion in the state, including greater Medicaid reimbursements for the procedure, allowing telehealth coverage and "policies to protect persons and practitioners and anyone seeking abortion care in Connecticut."[26]

In the wake of the law's passage, abortion seekers went to clinics in other states, including those that do not border Texas.[27][lower-alpha 2] It was unclear whether it permitted suits against providers in other states who perform or oversee an abortion on a Texas patient, whether in person or remotely.[4] A state legislator in Missouri introduced a bill that would specifically allow suits against providers in other states who perform abortions on Missouri women.[28]

Blumenthal and Gilchrest introduced a bill in early March to address those concerns, based in part[29] on a draft Columbia Law Review article exploring the possible extraterritoriality issues that would arise in the wake of Roe''s overturn, and how states wishing to continue providing legal abortion could exploit them to do so.[30] It was given the number 5414 and referred to the General Assembly's Judiciary Committee.[31][lower-alpha 3] A week later, Idaho's legislature passed a law similar to Texas's and sent it to governor Brad Little for his signature.[33][lower-alpha 4] Neighboring Washington responded with a law forbidding the state from prosecuting anyone involved in an abortion, with the intent of allowing Idaho abortion seekers to avail themselves of the procedure in Washington.[35]

At the end of March the committee reported it out favorably by a 24–14 vote, dividing along party lines, with one member absent.[42] It was filed with the legislative commissioner's office for legal and fiscal analysis, then put on the House calendar April 14.[31] Five days later, it was combined through an amendment on a 93–54 vote largely along party lines with a separate bill that allowed nonphysicians to perform certain types of abortions, and passed by an 87–60 vote. Seven Republicans, mostly women, including Laura Devlin, the party's likely candidate for lieutenant governor in that year's election, voted for passage while 14 Democrats opposed it;[3] Four members were absent.[43]

The Democrats who opposed the bill were largely from the state's Black and Puerto Rican communities. One, Rep. Treneé McGee of West Haven, who had taken her seat six months earlier in a special election where she had run on a "consistent life ethic", opposed to not only abortion but the death penalty and euthanasia,[44] said she knew the bill would pass but had to speak against it anyway, having been the only Democrat to vote against the amendment combining the two bills. "I want to speak to the history of this industry and why I think it's destructive to my community", she said, noting that Black women account for a share of abortions performed that is more than twice their percentage of the overall population. She believed too many Black women had come to consider abortion the only form of birth control and that her community had more pressing needs than abortion access.[3]

A Democrat who voted for the bill, Rep. Aimee Berger-Girvalo of Ridgefield, recalled her own abortion at 18. She had made the decision with her boyfriend, who later became father to her children, crossing "a barrier of protestors yelling and grabbing at me" to get in to the clinic. "I have never once regretted my choice", she said. Berger-Girvalo recalled the experience by way of supporting the provision that expanded those who could perform abortions, saying she would have been a lot more comfortable in that situation dealing with the APRN who gave her annual exams at the time instead of strangers.[3][45]

Some Republicans who voted against the bill said that while they supported the legal protections against lawsuits from Texas, they were opposed to the provisions allowing nonphysicians to perform some nonsurgical abortions. "We can all agree that we want abortions to be legal, safe and rare," said Rep. Kimberly Fiorello of Greenwich. "And I believe that this bill is going in the opposite direction." Rep. Vincent Candelora of North Branford, the House minority leader, expressed doubts about the bill's constitutionality. "It's creating a cause of action for anyone to come into Connecticut, to bring third-party lawsuits for judgments that might have been held against them in other states", he said during floor debate on the bill. "[T]hat sort of impacts the notion that states are allowed to govern themselves." Blumenthal said later that clarifying language added during the debate had sufficiently addressed that concern.[3]

At a news conference that morning, Governor Ned Lamont announced he would sign the bill if the General Assembly passed it, likening the Texas law to "vigilante justice". He was flanked by two activists on the issue, Amanda Skinner, president of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, and Janée Woods Webber, executive director of the Connecticut Women's Education and Legal Fund, who said "we will never achieve gender equity or economic equity without full reproductive freedom." Skinner praised the services-expansion provision as it would shorten a two-week waiting period for first-trimester abortions in the state.[3]

Ten days later, on April 29, the Senate brought the bill to a vote. Debate opened that evening and ended shortly before midnight with the bill passing, 25–9. As in the House, while Democrats predominantly supported the bill and Republicans opposed it, there were exceptions on both sides. Two Republicans were absent.[46][47]

Again, Democratic opposition came from Black women representing the state's larger cities. As Rep. McGee had, Sen. Patricia Billie Miller of Stamford talked of abortions being forced on enslaved and Native women in the past: "There's no way that I can accept a system that would intentionally take a baby from a mother", she said. She also noted that in discussions of the state's juvenile justice system, it was noted that the human brain is not fully developed until the age of 25. Yet the state allowed teenagers to have abortions without their parents' consent or knowledge. Citing friends who had had abortions at that age which still bothered them, she said "I will not stand here and support a system that was designed to take advantage of people who didn't know any better."[47]

Miller agreed it was ultimately a woman's choice since it was her body, but reminded her colleagues, as McGee had, that women in her community needed support in all reproductive choices and many of them terminated pregnancies only because they believed they had no other options. Another senator, Marilyn Moore of Bridgeport, who had worked at Planned Parenthood for eight years, castigated that organization for some of its past associations with racism and said it had to do better in its relationship with the Black community. "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." Sen. Douglas McCrory of the city of Hartford, the state capitol, supported the bill and abortion rights but agreed that McGee's remarks in the House had "pulled the scab off something."[47]

Some Republicans supported the bill. "It is somewhat outrageous that another state thinks it can come into our state and sue clinicians", said Heather Somers of Groton.[47]

Following the bill's passage, it was certified and prepared for Lamont's signature by the offices of the legislative commissioner and the Secretary of State.[31] Two days later, a leaked draft of the Dobbs opinion suggesting the Court would indeed overrule Roe and return abortion regulation to the states circulated, greatly alarming abortion-rights activists. Lamont alluded to this when he signed the bill on video in his office, without any ceremony, May 5. "This is a bill I wanted to sign as soon as possible", he said. Senate president pro tempore Martin Looney of New Haven called the bill a "defense of our own values and our own legal system."[48]