Abortion in Connecticut is legal up to the point of fetal viability, or after that if necessary to preserve the life or health (including mental health) of the pregnant individual. [1] A poll by the Pew Research Center found that 67 percent of adults in the state believed that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
Abortions took place early in the state's history. People at that time talked about abortions using euphemisms. The death of Sarah Grosvenor following unsuccessful abortion resulted in a prosecution in colonial Connecticut. Connecticut became the first state to criminalize abortion after codifying its common law in 1821. Later, such laws were justified as trying to protect the life of the women from bad actors providing unsafe abortion services. The state was one of ten states in 2007 to have a customary informed consent provision for abortions. In 1965, the US Supreme Court heard the case of Griswold v. Connecticut , striking down laws that banned the sale, use of and prescription of contraceptives, even for married couples. The Court's later decision in 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling meant the state could no longer regulate abortion in the first trimester. In 1990, state law was amended to read, "the decision to terminate a pregnancy prior to the viability of the fetus shall be solely that of the pregnant woman in consultation with her physician", the first such law in state codifying the Court's holding in Roe, as it would be later modified by Planned Parenthood v. Casey . The number of abortion clinics in the state has been declining in recent years, going from 46 in 1982 to 43 in 1992 to 21 in 2014. There were 10,625 legal abortions performed in Connecticut in 2014, and 9,888 in 2015. In 1964, Gerri Santoro of Connecticut died trying to obtain an illegal abortion and her photo became the symbol of the pro-choice movement. Abortion rights activists in the state participated in the #StoptheBans movement in May 2019. Anti-abortion rights organizations were created in the state in the late 1960s.
Sarah Grosvenor was involved in a colonial court hearing after an unsuccessful abortion resulted in her death. After a seemingly successful surgical abortion performed by Dr. John Hallowell, Grosvenor became sick. She died on September 14, 1742, in her hometown of Pomfret, Connecticut, after surgical complications. [2] [3] [4]
Three years after Grosvenor's death, her case was taken to court. Historians believe the incident came to the attention of the court after years of gossip and rumors. Zerviah and Sarah's friend Abigail Nightingale testified in court, recounting what Grosvenor had confessed to both of them separately from her death bed. The court identified her physician, John Hallowell, and her lover, Amasa Sessions, as responsible for her murder. The court charged the individuals for both putting Sarah into bad health and the attempted abortion, as it was done in an attempt to conceal her pregnancy. The court hearing ended in Amasa's innocence and the conviction of Hallowell with a misdemeanor. The court case did not acknowledge Grosvenor's abortion as murder of the fetus, even though Zerviah had testified that Grosvenor had felt the child move from within her. It has been understood by historians that Amasa was deemed innocent as he had lost his lover and had not performed the operation that resulted in her death. [4] [5] [6] [7] Grosvenor's case has been argued as one of the most well known surgical abortion cases in colonial America. [2]
Abortions took place early in the state's history. People at that time talked about abortions using euphemisms. [8]
Connecticut was the first state in the nation to make abortion a criminal offense. The state did this by statue in 1821, codifying what was already found in the state's common law. [9] [10] [11] The 1821 Connecticut law targeted apothecaries who sold "poisons" to women for purposes of inducing an abortion, and New York made post-quickening abortions a felony and pre-quickening abortions a misdemeanor in 1829. [12] [10] In the 19th century, bans by state legislatures on abortion were about protecting the life of the mother given the number of deaths caused by abortions; state governments saw themselves as looking out for the lives of their citizens. [9] By 1950, the state legislature would pass a law stating that a woman who had an abortion or actively sought to have an abortion regardless of whether she went through with it were guilty of a criminal offense. [9] [ failed verification ]
After the Supreme Court struck down the state's ban on the use of contraception in 1965 with Griswold v. Connecticut , which recognized a right to privacy in the "emanations and penumbras" of the Bill of Rights, [13] 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. [14] [15]
In the years after Roe made the state's appeal moot, voters began to be perceived as tolerant of abortion. In 1990 Governor William O'Neill, a Catholic who personally opposed abortion, signed the first bill in the nation that codified the terms of Roe (and later Planned Parenthood v. Casey ) into state law, saying "the decision to terminate a pregnancy prior to the viability of the fetus shall be solely that of the pregnant woman in consultation with her physician." [16]
The state was one of 10 in 2007 to have a customary informed consent provision for abortions. [17] Connecticut is one of 17 states that use their own funds to cover all or most "medically necessary" abortions sought by low-income women under Medicaid, 13 of which were required by State court orders to do so. [18] In 2017, Washington State, New Mexico, Illinois, Alaska, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey allow qualified non-physicians to prescribe drugs for medical abortions only. [19]
In May 2019, the state was debating a bill about Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs). The proposed bill would prohibit them from engaging in deceptive advertising. [20] [21] The law was passed in 2021. [22]
In response to the 2021 Texas Heartbeat Act, which allowed private civil suits against anyone performing or facilitating an abortion, even one performed on a Texas resident out of state or from out of state, the General Assembly passed House Bill 5414, signed into law by Governor Ned Lamont in early May 2022. It allows anyone sued under the Texas law or those like it passed in other states over an abortion that took place in whole or part in Connecticut to countersue in Connecticut for the same amount awarded. The state's courts may not issue subpoenas or any orders related to, nor may state government, and all law enforcement, cooperate with, an investigation or prosecution out of state of an abortion that would be legal if performed in Connecticut. The governor is also forbidden from extraditing to another state any resident sought by another state for prosecution under its abortion laws if the act alleged would have been legal in Connecticut. On the medical side, HB 5414 allows advanced practice registered nurses, nurse midwives and physician's assistants to perform suction abortions in addition to medication abortions. [23]
Other states supportive of abortion rights had passed some elements of HB 5414, but Connecticut, according to a law professor whose research had informed the bill, was the first state to do it in one bill and go to great lengths to protect providers. [24] [25] HB 5414 inspired a similar bill in the Council of the District of Columbia, [26] and neighboring New York passed in mid-June a series of similar laws. [27] [28]
The Connecticut Supreme Court said in 1904, "The public policy that underlies this legislation is based largely on protection due to the woman, protection against her own weakness as well as the criminal list and greed of others. The criminal intent and moral turpitude involved in the violation, by a woman, of the restraint put upon her control over her own person is widely different than that which attends the man who, in clear violation of the law, and for pay and gain of any kind, inflicts an injury on the body of a woman endangering health and perhaps life." [9]
The US Supreme Court's decision in 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling meant the state could no longer regulate abortion in the first trimester. [9] However, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization , No. 19-1392 , 597 U.S. ___(2022) later in 2022. [29] [30]
Between 1982 and 1992, the number of abortion clinics in the state decreased by 3, going from 46 in 1982 to 43 in 1992. [31] In 2014, there were 21 abortion clinics in the state. [32] In 2014, 15% of the counties in the state did not have an abortion clinic. That year, 5% of women in the state aged 15–44 lived in a county without an abortion clinic. [33] In March 2016, there were 17 Planned Parenthood clinics in the state. [34] In 2017, there were 17 Planned Parenthood clinics, of which 17 offered abortion services, in a state with a population of 812,634 women aged 15–49. [35]
In the period between 1972 and 1974, there were zero recorded illegal abortion deaths in the state. [36] In 1990, 443,000 women in the state faced the risk of an unintended pregnancy. [31] In 2014, 67% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. [37] In 2017, the state had an infant mortality rate of 4.5 deaths per 1,000 live births. [38]
Census division and state | Number | Rate | % change 1992–1996 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1992 | 1995 | 1996 | 1992 | 1995 | 1996 | ||
Total | 1,528,930 | 1,363,690 | 1,365,730 | 25.9 | 22.9 | 22.9 | –12 |
New England | 78,360 | 71,940 | 71,280 | 25.2 | 23.6 | 23.5 | –7 |
Connecticut | 19,720 | 16,680 | 16,230 | 26.2 | 23 | 22.5 | –14 |
Maine | 4,200 | 2,690 | 2,700 | 14.7 | 9.6 | 9.7 | –34 |
Massachusetts | 40,660 | 41,190 | 41,160 | 28.4 | 29.2 | 29.3 | 3 |
New Hampshire | 3,890 | 3,240 | 3,470 | 14.6 | 12 | 12.7 | –13 |
Rhode Island | 6,990 | 5,720 | 5,420 | 30 | 25.5 | 24.4 | –19 |
Location | Residence | Occurrence | % obtained by out-of-state residents | Year | Ref | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
No. | Rate^ | Ratio^^ | No. | Rate^ | Ratio^^ | ||||
Connecticut | 19,720 | 26.2 | 1992 | [39] | |||||
Connecticut | 16,680 | 23 | 1995 | [39] | |||||
Connecticut | 16,230 | 22.5 | 1996 | [39] | |||||
Connecticut | 10,625 | 15.5 | 293 | 10,611 | 15.5 | 292 | 2.6 | 2014 | [40] |
Connecticut | 9,888 | 14.5 | 277 | 9,938 | 14.6 | 278 | 2.7 | 2015 | [41] |
Connecticut | 9,954 | 14.8 | 276 | 10,031 | 14.9 | 279 | 2.9 | 2016 | [42] |
^number of abortions per 1.000 women aged 15–44; ^^number of abortions per 1,000 live births |
In 1964, Gerri Santoro of Connecticut died trying to obtain an illegal abortion and her photo became the symbol of the pro-choice movement. [43] [11] A photo of her dead body was published in April 1973 in Ms. magazine, making her death a rallying cry for many in the abortion rights movement. [11]
Women from the state participated in marches supporting abortion rights as part of a #StoptheBans movement in May 2019. [44]
Following the overturn of Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, thousands protested in New Haven, Connecticut. [45] On the same day over a hundred abortion rights protesters gathered in downtown Stamford [46] and the New Milford Town Green. [47]
In 1965, a Supreme Court decision in Griswold v. Connecticut set a precedent for an expansive right to privacy in the area of reproductive healthcare. In the late 1960s, in response to nationwide abortion-rights efforts, a number of organizations were formed to mobilize opinion against the legalization of abortion. [48]
Family Institute of Connecticut, an interdenominational, conservative tax-exempt nonprofit organization whose stated goal is to encourage and strengthen the family as the foundation of society and to promote Judeo-Christian ethical and moral values in the culture and government of Connecticut. [49] [50] [51]
Abortion in Alaska is legal at all stages of pregnancy. In September 2024, an Alaska superior court judge struck down the requirement that only licensed physicians provide abortions, meaning that the procedure can now also be legally performed by nurse practitioners and physician assistants. As of 2016, Alaska does not require a minor to notify a parent or guardian in order to obtain an abortion. 63% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Alaska was one of only four states to make abortion legal between 1967 and 1970, a few years before the US Supreme Court's decision in 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling. Alaska had consent requirements for women seeking abortions by 2007 that required abortion providers to warn patients of a link between abortion and breast cancer, despite it being scientifically unsupported.
Abortion in Arkansas is illegal except when it is necessary to save the life of the pregnant individual. Doctors determined to have performed an abortion face up to 10 years in prison and fines up to $100,000.
Abortion in Delaware is legal up to the point of fetal viability. As of June 2024, Civiqs polling found that 72% of Delawareans believed that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 23% believed it should be illegal in all or most cases. There was a therapeutic exceptions in the state's legislative ban on abortions by 1900. Informed consent laws were on the books by 2007. In 2017, Senator Bryan Townsend, D-Newark introduced legislation to try to make clear that abortion would remain legal in the state in case 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling was overturned. The legislation was subsequently updated. Attempts have been made to introduce mandatory ultrasound laws, but they failed to get out of committee. State legislators tried to move ahead the week at which a woman could get a legal abortion in 2019.
Abortion in the District of Columbia is legal at all stages of pregnancy. In 1971, in United States v. Vuitch, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law saying abortion was allowed for health reasons, which include "psychological and physical well-being". Consequently, the District of Columbia became a destination for women seeking abortions starting that year.
Abortion in Hawaii is legal. 66% of adults in Hawaii said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Hawaii began allowing abortion care de jure in 1970, the first state to do so. State law enacted at that time stated said, "the State shall not deny or interfere with a female's right to choose or obtain an abortion of a nonviable fetus or an abortion that is necessary to protect the life or health of the female."
Abortion in Idaho is illegal from fertilization. Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, abortion in Idaho was criminalized by the trigger law which states that a person who performs an abortion may face two to five years of imprisonment. The ban allows exceptions for maternal health, rape and incest within the first trimester. The law took effect on August 25, 2022.
Abortion in Maine is legal, although terminations after fetal viability can only be performed if a physician determines it to be medically necessary. According to a poll by the Pew Research Center, 64% of adults said that abortion should be legal, with 33% stating that it should be illegal in all or most cases.
Abortion in Nevada is legal up to the 24th week of pregnancy, under the Nevada Revised Statutes chapter 442, section 250; and after 24 weeks if the pregnancy could be fatal for the pregnant individual. 62% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal while 34% said it should by illegal in all or most cases. Legislation by 2007 required informed consent. Attempts were successfully made to pass abortion legislation in May 2019, being pushed through a largely Democratic controlled state legislature. The number of abortion clinics in Nevada has declined over the years, with 25 in 1982, seventeen in 1992 and thirteen in 2014. There were 8,132 legal abortions in 2014, and 7,116 in 2015. Due to the high level of support for abortion rights in the state, continued access to abortion is supported by all parties, including the Republicans.
Abortion in North Dakota is technically legal, but with no current providers. The state's sole abortion clinic, the Red River Women's Clinic, relocated to Minnesota.
Abortion in Oregon is legal at all stages of pregnancy. The Center for Reproductive Rights classifies Oregon as highly protective of abortion rights.
Abortion in Rhode Island is legal up to the point of fetal viability. On June 19, 2019, the legal right to abortion was codified into Rhode Island law by passage of the Reproductive Privacy Act.
Abortion in South Dakota is illegal. Anyone who induces an abortion is guilty of a Class 6 felony. An exception is included to "preserve the life of the pregnant female," given appropriate and reasonable medical judgment.
Abortion in Utah is legally performed under a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of the state's trigger law, which bans abortion. According to HB136, which is effective state law from June 28, 2022, abortions are banned following 18 weeks of gestation. Abortion was banned following the Supreme Court case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization on June 24, 2022. Utah State Legislation enacted SB 174 in May 2020, which, upon the overturn of Roe v. Wade, made inducing an abortion a second-degree felony. The law includes exceptions for pregnancies "caused by rape or incest," pregnancies that put the mother's life at risk, or "if two doctors say the fetus has a lethal defect." Rape and incest exceptions will only be viable if the crimes were previously reported to law enforcement officials.
Abortion in Vermont is legal at all stages of pregnancy. A 2014 Pew Research Center poll showed 70% of adults in the state believed abortion should be legal in most or all cases, the second highest percentage in the country. The state funds abortions deemed medically necessary for low-income women via Medicaid.
Abortion in the U.S. state of Virginia is legal up to the end of the second trimester of a pregnancy. Before the year 1900, abortion remained largely illegal in Virginia, reflecting a widespread trend in many U.S. states during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Abortion was viewed as a criminal act and subject to state laws that prohibited it. However, by 1950, Virginia introduced a legal therapeutic exception, allowing for abortion under specific circumstances, primarily when a woman's physical or mental health was at risk. Notably, the University of Virginia Hospital established a review board in 1950 responsible for evaluating and approving abortion requests, particularly those grounded in psychiatric reasons. This thorough approval process resulted in a significant decrease in the number of abortions performed at the hospital.
Abortion in Washington is legal and available up to the point of fetal viability, or in case the pregnancy poses a risk to life or health. In a poll by the Pew Research Center, 60% of adults said that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
Abortion in West Virginia is illegal except in cases of rape or incest, fatal fetal abnormalities, and when the mother’s life is at risk from a pregnancy.
Abortion in Wisconsin has been legal since September 18, 2023, and is performed in Madison, Milwaukee and Sheboygan through 22 weeks gestation. However, elective abortions in Wisconsin are under dispute after the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court of the United States on June 24, 2022. Abortion opponents cite an 1849 law that they claim bans the procedure in all cases except when the life of the mother is in danger. However, lower level courts have argued that the law only applies to infanticide and not consensual abortions. The enforceability of the law is disputed and being considered by the state courts. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin announced that they would resume abortion services in Madison and Milwaukee on September 18, 2023. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin later announced that they would resume abortion services in Sheboygan on December 28, 2023.
Abortion in New Mexico is legal at all stages of pregnancy. The number of abortion clinics in New Mexico has declined over the years, with 26 in 1982, 20 in 1992 and 11 in 2014. There were 4,500 legal abortions in 2014. There were 7 facilities providing abortion in New Mexico in 2017, and 6 of those were clinics. In 2017, 91% of New Mexico counties had no clinics that provided abortions, and 48% of New Mexico women lived in those counties.
Abortion in Wyoming is currently legal due to a temporary court injunction.
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