Tiverton reps. vote to protect Roe vs. Wade in state law

PROVIDENCE — A Rhode Island legislative committee on Tuesday approved a bill to guarantee the legality of abortion in Rhode Island, despite the vehement opposition of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, the state GOP hierarchy and a former governor at odds with the state’s current Catholic governor over abortion in this heavily Catholic state.

The House Judiciary Committee vote was 9 to 7 in favor of the legislation, which has now been scheduled for a vote by the full House on Thursday.

The committee’s action led to angry shouts of “choose life, choose life” from a throng of protesters lining the marble stairs that lead up to the rotunda. An hour later, they were still shouting at full volume and waving “Stop Abortion Now” signs.

The Rev. Bernard Healey, the priest-lobbyist for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, called the vote a “stinging rebuke for the principle that each and every human life has inherent dignity, and therefore must be treated with the respect due to a human person. This is the foundation of the Church’s social doctrine, including her teachings on war, the use of capital punishment, euthanasia, health care, poverty and immigration.”

“Today’s vote is a low point in the three-century history of the R.I. General Assembly,” he said.

But the jubilant sponsors, including Rep. Anastasia Williams, the House Labor Committee chairwoman, issued this statement: “We are now closer to securing a woman’s right to privacy and choice in her medical decisions in Rhode Island. We will continue to push forward for passage on the House floor on Thursday.”

The legislation would keep abortion legal in Rhode Island even if the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized it. A Senate committee held a hearing on a matching bill Tuesday night that drew many of the same activists on both sides of the issue as a grueling House hearing in late January.

Before the vote, debate within the House committee touched on medical science, religious beliefs and legal interpretations of words such as “health” and “medically necessary,” although Rep. James McLaughlin — who is not on the committee — momentarily drew attention to himself and the framed picture he was holding of Christ and a child by bursting into the room with a loud: “How’re you doing?”

Rep. Arthur Corvese, one of the leading abortion foes in the House, disputed descriptions of the bill as a “strict codification” of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which established a constitutional right to an early-term abortion, while allowing restrictions and prohibitions later “except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.”

The bill now headed for a House vote, 46 years later, says much the same thing: “The termination of an individual’s pregnancy after fetal viability is expressly prohibited except when necessary, in the medical judgment of the physician, to preserve the life or health of that individual.”

“This is the opposite of a strict codification,” Democrat Corvese of North Providence said of the bill in front of him. He cited as examples the proposed repeal of Rhode Island’s own “partial-birth abortion” law, which was ruled unconstitutional, and a 1970s “fetal homicide” law that has never been used in Rhode Island, according to the attorney general’s office, to successfully prosecute the death of a fetus as a result of the murder or serious injury of the mother.

Republican Rep. Blake Filippi, the House Minority Leader, said repeal would leave Rhode Island without a way to prosecute a “crazy boyfriend” who stomps the stomach of his pregnant girlfriend to deliberately kill the fetus she is carrying.

“We are taking away the crime against the fetus. We are denying legal status to a fetus that could be eight and a half months old,” Filippi argued.

But House Judiciary Chairman Robert Craven, a former state prosecutor, said there are “a plethora” of other potential charges, including “felony assault with permanent injury resulting ... 20 years.”

“I believe that this is a good thing,” said Craven, acknowledging his upbringing as a Catholic, “and I believe that, quite frankly, the time has come for the General Assembly — and the House in particular and this committee specifically — to recognize those rights of a woman and to say, look, it’s your body. You can make those decisions with these caveats, with these rules, with these limitations.”

Voting for the bill: Democrats Craven, Evan Shanley, Carol McEntee, John “Jay” Edwards, Julie Casimiro, Joseph Almeida, Dennis Canario, Daniel McKiernan and James Jackson.

Voting against the bill: Democrats Corvese, Christopher Millea, Camille Vella-Wilkinson, Thomas Noret and Republicans Filippi, David Place and Sherry Roberts.

Filippi’s role as minority leader makes him a voting, ex officio member of every House committee. His was not a deciding vote, however. Freshman Jackson and Edwards, the House majority whip — who had the endorsement of the Rhode Island Right to Life committee in the last election — voted with the seven committee members who co-sponsored another version of the abortion-rights legislation.

The last time Rhode Island lawmakers came this close to passing a law to protect the legality of abortion was in 1993, when the House passed a bill championed by then-Rep. Linda Kushner.

On that day in May 1993, The Journal reported: “After a grueling three-hour debate, the House approved the abortion rights measure by a vote of 51 to 42.... [The vote] marked the first time in the modern political history of this heavily Roman Catholic state that an abortion rights measure has been approved by either chamber of the General Assembly.” The bill died in the Senate.

Tuesday’s hearing drew former Republican Gov. Donald Carcieri back to the State House — with laryngitis — to quietly demonstrate his solidarity with the opponents of the legislation, while the current governor, Democrat Gina Raimondo, sent lawmakers a letter urging passage.

“I believe that no one should get in the middle of a decision between a woman and her doctor and that no woman should have to choose between health care and making ends meet,” she wrote.