Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D) on Thursday became the first state leader to sign legislation affirming abortion rights after a news leak revealed that the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision is likely to soon be overturned.
The bill provides legal protections to those performing or seeking abortions – including those coming in from other states to do so – and expands the list of practitioners who are permitted to perform abortion procedures.
“This is a bill I wanted to sign as soon as possible,” Lamont said upon approving the measure. “You’ve heard a lot about what’s coming out of the Supreme Court in a preliminary ruling that looks like they may be on the edge of ending a woman’s right to choose in ending Roe v. Wade. That’s not going to happen in the state of Connecticut – not as long as I’m here. No politician is going to get between you and your doctor. You make the choice.”
Lamont has long held that if the Supreme Court ever reversed the 1973 Roe decision which forbade states from deciding to ban or significantly restrict abortion, he would act to secure the continuation of abortion in the Constitution State.
Conservatives have hailed the news that Justice Samuel Alito apparently wrote his anti-Roe opinion on behalf of a majority of the high court, noting that abortion is unmentioned in the U.S. Constitution and that the court’s rationale for upholding the ruling has frequently changed. They have also denounced the leaking of the preliminary opinion before it had been officially released.
Justice Harry Blackmun’s original opinion insisted that a right to privacy implicitly contained in the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed a woman’s right to abort her pre-born child. Many legal scholars, including many left-leaning ones like Jeffrey Rosen, who currently heads the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, have rebuked that reasoning.
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Bradley Vasoli is managing editor of The Connecticut Star. Follow Brad on Twitter at @BVasoli. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Ned Lamont” by Ned Lamont.
