Abortion In Connecticut

Abortion in Connecticut is legal. 67% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center 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 statue 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.  The Supreme Court struck laws the banned the sale of, use of and giving of prescriptions for contraceptives, even for married couples.  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. In 2019, state law said,  "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 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.

Terminology

The abortion debate most commonly relates to the "induced abortion" of an embryo or fetus at some point in a pregnancy, which is also how the term is used in a legal sense. Some also use the term "elective abortion", which is used in relation to a claim to an unrestricted right of a woman to an abortion, whether or not she chooses to have one. The term elective abortion or voluntary abortion describes the interruption of pregnancy before viability at the request of the woman, but not for medical reasons.

Anti-abortion advocates tend to use terms such as "unborn baby", "unborn child", or "pre-born child", and see the medical terms "embryo", "zygote", and "fetus" as dehumanizing. Both "pro-choice" and "pro-life" are examples of terms labeled as political framing: they are terms which purposely try to define their philosophies in the best possible light, while by definition attempting to describe their opposition in the worst possible light. "Pro-choice" implies that the alternative viewpoint is "anti-choice", while "pro-life" implies the alternative viewpoint is "pro-death" or "anti-life". The Associated Press encourages journalists to use the terms "abortion rights" and "anti-abortion".

Context

Free birth control correlates to teenage girls having a fewer pregnancies and fewer abortions. A 2014 New England Journal of Medicine study found such a link.  At the same time, a 2011 study by Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health also found that states with more abortion restrictions have higher rates of maternal death, higher rates of uninsured pregnant women, higher rates of infant and child deaths, higher rates of teen drug and alcohol abuse, and lower rates of cancer screening.

According to a 2017 report from the Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health, states that tried to pass additional constraints on a women's ability to access legal abortions had fewer policies supporting women's health, maternal health and children's health.  These states also tended to resist expanding Medicaid, family leave, medical leave, and sex education in public schools. According to Megan Donovan, a senior policy manager at the Guttmacher Institute, states have legislation seeking to protect a woman's right to access abortion services have the lowest rates of infant mortality in the United States.

Poor women in the United States had problems paying for menstrual pads and tampons in 2018 and 2019. Almost two-thirds of American women could not pay for them. These were not available through the federal Women, Infants, and Children Program (WIC). Lack of menstrual supplies has an economic impact on poor women.  A study in St. Louis found that 36% had to miss days of work because they lacked adequate menstrual hygiene supplies during their period.  This was on top of the fact that many had other menstrual issues including bleeding, cramps and other menstrual induced health issues. Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, and Pennsylvania all had exemptions for essential hygiene products like tampons and menstrual pads as of November 2018.

History

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.

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. Grosvenor's case has been argued as one of the most well known surgical abortion cases in colonial America.

Abortions took place early in the state's history.  People at that time talked about abortions using euphemisms.

Legislative history

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. 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. 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. By 1950, the state legislature would pass a law that 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.

The state was one of ten states in 2007 to have a customary informed consent provision for abortions. 17 states including Connecticut use their own funds to cover all or most "medically necessary" abortions sought by low-income women under Medicaid, 13 of which are required by State court orders to do so. 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. In August 2018, the state had a law to protect the right to have an abortion. As of May 14, 2019, the state prohibited abortions after the fetus was viable, generally some point between week 24 and 28. This period uses a standard defined by the US Supreme Court in 1973 with the Roe v. Wade ruling. In 2019, state law said,  "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." 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, but was never passed because they proved to not have deceived their patients.

Judicial history

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."

In 1965, the US Supreme Court heard the case of Griswold v. Connecticut.  The Supreme Court struck laws the banned the sale of, use of and giving of prescriptions for contraceptives, even for married couples.  The Supreme Court ruled that people had an expectation of a "right to privacy" when it came to making personal decisions about reproductive decisions. 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.

Clinic history

Number of abortion clinics in Connecticut by year

Between 1982 and 1992, the number of abortion clinics in the state decreased by 3, going from 46 in 1982 to 43 in 1992. In 2014, there were 21 abortion clinics in the state. 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. In March 2016, there were 17 Planned Parenthood clinics in the state. In 2017, there were 17 Planned Parenthood clinics in a state with a population of 812,634 women aged 15 – 49 of which 17 offered abortion services.

Statistics

In the period between 1972 and 1974, there were zero recorded illegal abortion deaths in the state. In 1990, 443,000 women in the state faced the risk of an unintended pregnancy. In 2014, 67% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. In 2017, the state had an infant mortality rate of 4.5 deaths per 1,000 live births.

Experiences getting abortions

Then 18-year-old Connecticut resident Vikki Wachtel went to New York City to get an abortion at Bellevue Hospital in October 1970, where she had post-abortion complications.  Her abortion took place only five months after abortion became legal in New York State.  Of her experience, she said, "The staff made us feel like we were about to commit a crime. [...] It was MY CHOICE to not have a child in 1970 and it must remain a woman's choice to do so on a national level. [...] These overreaching and restrictive laws will only make abortions more dangerous, not eliminate them."

Deaths as a result of illegal abortions

In 1964, Gerri Santoro of Connecticut died trying to obtain an illegal abortion and her photo became the symbol of the pro-choice movement. 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.

Abortion rights views and activities

Protests

Women from the state participated in marches supporting abortion rights as part of a #StoptheBans movement in May 2019.

Anti-abortion activities and views

Activism

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.

Organizations

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.

Footnotes