Roe V. Wade Overturned: What Happens Now In RI?

RHODE ISLAND — The Supreme Court of the United States ruled Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade. What does that mean for Rhode Island residents?

Rhode Island is one of 14 states, plus the District of Columbia, with laws in place protecting the right to an abortion, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights. Even with the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision reversed, Rhode Island residents can still receive abortion care.

The decision, authored by Justice Samuel Alito was released Friday, more than a month after a draft of the opinion leaked. It will have an immediate impact on abortion rights in 13 states, largely in the south and west, that have laws in place to ban abortion as soon as Roe is overturned. Last month, the Rhode Island Supreme Court upheld a 2019 law protecting abortion rights in the state.

"For nearly half a century following the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, a woman’s right to choose whether to end her pregnancy has been an established, fundamental right," Attorney General Peter Nerona said. Indeed, that fundamental right has been so firmly established over the lives of multiple generations of Americans that until recently, the notion of the Supreme Court going backwards in time and eliminating it has been unthinkable. And yet that is precisely what the Supreme Court has done today, in a decision that endangers women’s health and turns the Court’s own long-standing principles recognizing the critical importance of adhering to legal precedent on their head."

"I want to reassure Rhode Islanders that the right to an abortion remains protected here in Rhode Island," Neronha continued. In 2019, Rhode Island codified Roe v. Wade and its progeny under our state's Reproductive Privacy Act, ensuring that Rhode Island will not return to the days of illegal and unsafe abortions that endanger lives and create criminal liability for physicians."

Gov. Dan McKee added assurance that abortion access will remain guaranteed for people in Rhode Island.

"Here in Rhode Island, we will always support a woman’s right to choose. Despite today’s ruling, Rhode Islanders still have the right to access abortion health care services in our state thanks to the General Assembly codifying these protections into law," he said.

And State Treasurer Seth Magaziner, also a congressional candidate, said he would fight for abortion provisions if elected.

"Today's Supreme Court ruling is a devastating step backward for women and underscores how high the stakes are for this election. In Congress, I will fight to codify the protections of Roe into federal law so that women across the country can make their own healthcare decisions.

The court's repudiation of the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and a subsequent case on fetal liability, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, was expected. In May, Justice Samuel Alito Jr.'s majority opinion draft was leaked to Politico, setting the stage for a seismic shift in abortion rights.

At least 26 states are certain or likely to make it nearly impossible for a woman to get a procedure that was legal for her mother, grandmother, or even great-grandmother, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion-rights research and policy group.

With the decision, abortion would be illegal or a nearly impossible procedure to get in about half of U.S. states, including large swaths of the South, Midwest and Northern Plains.

Abortion is already illegal or soon will be in 13 states with pre-existing "trigger" laws banning abortion set to take effect with the dismantling of Roe and Casey, and another four are poised to ban it, according to the Guttmcher Institute. Nine have so-called fetal heartbeat laws that make the procedure illegal before many women know they are pregnant.

Abortion rights were long considered settled law; and even as conservative states pushed at-the-time unconstitutional fetal heartbeat laws and others restricting abortion access to bring the court to this moment, many legal scholars doubted a right that generations of women and men had counted on was in serious jeopardy.

The case that made it to a full hearing before the court, Mississippi’s 15-week ban on abortion, came after former President Donald Trump appointed three conservative judges — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and, a few months before his term ended, Amy Coney Barrett, who replaced liberal stalwart Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in September 2020.

The court heard oral arguments on the Mississippi case in December.

Lawyers for the state of Mississippi had proposed an array of mechanisms to uphold the 15-week abortion ban but said the court ultimately should overturn the "egregiously wrong" Roe and Casey rulings.

If the court "does not impose a substantial obstacle to 'a significant number of women' seeking abortions," the state argued at the time, the justices should reinterpret the "undue burden" standard established in Roe and give the state the authority to "prohibit elective abortions before viability" of the fetus.

Demonstrations Planned In Providence

Many organizations have reacted to the Supreme Court's decision, and the Rhode Island Coalition For Reproductive Freedom announced a press conference at 3 p.m. outside the Federal Courthouse.

"When we led the fight to pass the Reproductive Privacy Act in 2019 and codify the protections of Roe v. Wade in Rhode Island state law, many argued this day would not come – yet, today, the U.S. Supreme Court has defied the will of the majority of people in our country by eliminating the federal constitutional right to abortion," the organization said, in a statement.

"We are outraged, and we are horrified. The court has failed us all, taking away the fundamental power to control our bodies and giving it to politicians."

A rally outside of the State House is also planned at 8 p.m.

"Hostile states will likely try to ban abortion, but here in Rhode Island because of the work that we did together over decades and the passage of the Reproductive Privacy Act in 2019, abortion is legal and we still have the right," said The Womxn Project, in a statement.

"Yes, that should be a comfort to anyone who needs care or will need or want to end a pregnancy in the coming days, but it is also a call to action. We need to speak up loudly and defiantly to make it clear that abortion IS a right and should be accessible for everyone everywhere."

• Previously on Patch: Abortion Rights Protected In Rhode Island If Roe V. Wade Falls